Circuitry
by obliviousbushtit
Summary: Redemption: a notion all too unrealistic to attain. Thel 'Vadam was well aware the first time the Gravemind drilled it into his head. Through unthinkable circumstances, the Arbiter and Master Chief are thrown into a reality not of their own. Unwittingly the master of the Reapers or not, Thel must find within him the ability to atone. 'Haps a certain Quarian may be able to help...
1. Ionised

Well, everything had gone to shit fairly quick!

_BOOM!_

Thel and John whip their heads back.

Okay, scratch that; everything went to shit real fucking fast. First was the _Forward Unto Dawn _deciding to halve itself in a well-intentioned effort to cut down the fat, now was the fact that the ship's prototype engine core decided to flip the bird at them! _A few wires ended up in places where they were never supposed to be, it seemed..._

And now, they may both end up dying to show for it. If only the eggheads back home had invented pocket Huragoks...

Damn it.

Chief looks back in silence at the plain they left behind. Slouching ever so slightly, he breathes a well-earned sigh.

Now if only their 'brief' scuffle with the Flood stays that way... that'd be great. Unless the spores had somehow built an airship from the ring's debris, he had it under fairly good authority that they shouldn't be a thorn in _anyone's_ backsides any longer.

But he knew from experience that nothing's ever so simple - hard as it is.

Even with the added help of Thel 'Vadamee - who thought sticking around with John was the most logical course of action, of course - the soldier knew that making out of this ring unscathed would be as likely as finding a pin in a haystack.

Of course, ending up on the same side of crates also just had as much likeliness, but they weren't complaining...

"Chief? Arbiter?"

Actually, make that three escapees... if you could count the dying AI that.

Chief hoists his sightlines... up they went along the dull-grey ceiling of the ship... and finally onto the ship's overhead cameras. Thel, not two stones away from Chief's position himself, leans on the wall to catch his breath.

Clearly, the Warthog breaking down mid-way on their run to the ship had worn his lungs out. They may as well not have been there!

But even that, it seemed, did not stop Thel from voicing his distaste about the situation. "Construct," he begins. "Your efforts are surely commendable... perhaps noble, no doubt - but this? This is nothing if not a fool's errand. The likeliness of this ship escaping intact is slim to none."

Her voice soon crawled about the ship's innards, stinging the Xeno's ears. "It's better than leaning on the wall and mulling over how you are about to die an unhonourable death, is it? Do you not have faith? Faith in the package you failed to destroy so long ago? Surely _that_ must have given your stubborn hide some hints... we _will_ make it out alive."

The Arbiter scoffs - whether it was a chuckle or a groan, The Chief couldn't tell. "Our situation is not a matter of faith. So many times I have bore witness to ships collapsing on itself with merely a quarter of what this vessel has sustained. How, pray tell, do you intend for either of us to survive re-entry into that damned ring of fire?"

"Haven't you heard what I just said? We aren't going to, not while my precessors still draw... electricity? Ugh. Whatever. Though I suppose it would take a million atomic bombs to annihilate your sovereign state of pissant pessimism."

"Realism, construct."

Despite being an AI, she still possessed the attitude of a human all the same. "Christ, do I want to bludgeon your head in..."

"I suppose you have a better suggestion, Arbiter?" Chief butts in, his already-suppressed mood _somehow_ over the edge from Thel's never-ending moroseness. "We could use another fresh pair of eyes."

The lone Sangheili stood tall, mast, defiant in his will to ever doubt himself otherwise - even as his eyes graze in numbed awe at the tranquil green they were slowly leaving behind, he did not falter in his judgement. He will not let them change his mind. The calm before the storm, indeed... Thel looks back at Chief, more reaffirmed in his tone than ever. "Yes, construct, demon. We may as well make do with the time given to us yet. I volunteer to stay. Make sure that blight you call the Flood does not escape the Ring. It does not matter to me whether you follow or not."

"I... I must have registered t-that sound file wrong..." stutters Cortana.

"You have heard right, construct."

"Well, in case you haven't noticed, Arbiter, that _ring's_ been set to blow in five micro-units. Something I programmed the ring to do myself, something you have seen me do - an hour ago! You will die!"

The battle-hardened soldier straightens his back; into the camera's optics his eyes pierced, his four-fingered hands balling into fists. "It is my safety that is of concern, not either you or the demon's."

"You are right," she replies, before barraging him at a volume two times her usual tone. "This is not just our concern. This concerns the safety of every single soul in the Milky Way Galaxy, if not this universe. Dabbling on whether or not you sacrifice yourself is beside the point. Your survival _will_ turn the tide of this war - halt the stagnation of Sangheilian culture, finally steer this whole galaxy away from needless death and suffering..."

"It matters not if all my kind deserve to be sent to the gallows, does it?"

"You don't **know** that."

He draws a shaking finger at her. "You know full well what I mean. Without the Prophets behind us, our means of developing resources will plummet. Perhaps this hadn't been the case in generations past before our induction into their government, but it will devastate us all today. We simply cannot sustain Sangheili numbers at our current state and... and culture. We are too swept up in the notion of honour and battle - none have the ability to develop scientific means around our predicament. My death would mean _nothing _in the grand scheme of things. We are doomed, either way."

"Hence the reason you need to live, Arbiter. To guide them," she retorts. "They already hold you up to such high regard. Why not take advantage of that?"

Thel shakes his head, suddenly finding the floor a rather interesting sight. "No, it would be impossible. We have already drunken far too much of the San'Shyuums' lies..."

"Arbiter, I may not have seen them myself... but I have known you long enough to tell between what is reality and what is not. It is _you_ who feels that they are too far gone, not them. You perceive them as arrogant because you cannot move from your own past. You use your people as reflections to a reality that no longer applies to you. Don't lump the rest of your kind with _your_ grief."

"Then let me die a warrior's death, construct! For a processor as vast as yours, surely it is not a difficult concept to comprehend! I don't deserve to live any more than that _bastard_ Truth did. I have committed sins no man should ever be left without consequences of, no man should ever receive pertinence of - I deserve this!"

"Arbiter, that's not you talking..."

"Let me **burn** in its blazes, then - if you find my tone is so insincere!" Thel howls, clobbering his foot onto the ship's metal, dust and grime bursting forth in its wake. "Throw me out if you think I bog myself down with gods-be-damned lies! Let me burn! Let me burn and wither and **DIE**! Throw me out of the ship, construct! I beg of you! Use me as fuel! Feed it to the fireplace! My life is _forfeit,_ so be it!"

"Why do you want to throw your life away so callous-"

"Because I _have _no honour! Because I am worth NOTHING! Because I lolled and salivated in the throes for more of the Prophets' lies! Because it is the only chance I shall EVER get to do something of worth in my damned life! Because my life is not worth the pity or the penitence of those I have stamped on the ground like slaughtered pigs! Because every ideal I believed in, every cause I stood for was nothing but an ambition for power and greed!

"I was stripped of my name, stripped of my honour, stripped of my voice, stripped of my tongue, torn of the very thing keeping me sane - my mind! I saw them, at the cusp of my left hand and my blade on the right. I saw nothing but fear, disgust! My will to obey and love and kiss the slimy feet of those VERMIN was infinite; I was barely more than a moving puppet! And I loved it! I lusted for it! I leered every time I snuffed them of their lives! I LAUGHED every time I broke and shattered their frail necks! I _killed _them! By the gods, I killed innocents!"

Whatever figure of unyielding authority left in Thel had vanished in his plea for death... it broke him, shattered his foundations from his core. Broke him down to little more than mass of quiet whimpers. And in his silence, Cortana and Chief stood in stunned awe.

"_Leave me what little honour I have left._ _I beg of you_," he cries, crumpling onto the cold grime of the ship. His head leans unto the cold surface of the ship's walls - a tear rolls down in a fit of thunder. "_I beg..._"

After what must have been units of him sulking there, a firm hand plants itself on his shoulder, gripping it with vice. He turns to face the perpetrator; one hand placed on the hilt of his blade and-

And...

Chief only stood by him two units away, tall and stoic as ever, nodding valiantly at Thel's response. And he was taken. Before he could even utter a word, Chief spoke first. "It is neither your fault or any of the other Covenant species' that the war turned out this way. You were led and admonished by a white lie that has stood the test of time... for millennia. If the whole of humanity had been in your position - we would have been tempted to do the same. Every organic responds the same way when living in a propaganda-state bred from tyranny and unyielding hate. We have done so to our own in the past. I guess what I am trying to say is... don't beat yourself up about it. Turning from and killing Truth redeemed your kind well over. You'd be surprised to see how little has changed on _our _side of government."

Thel was rendered speechless. He couldn't think of anything to say. If not the resulting attitude it was the measurement in which Chief consoled him. The Sangheili had done nothing but hunt down his dying kind for a better part of his whole military career. Spitting on the feet of those they do capture. Glassing their homes until they were nothing but dust in the foul wind.

How could this demon, this predator who has been nothing but the bane and thorn of the Covenant's backsides for the past decade... have worked up the courage to _understand_? _Thel_ couldn't understand.

"I do not know, demon," the Arbiter soon mutters weakly, grasping John's hand and leaning on him for support. "One moment you lodge a trillion bullets into the Covenant's bare chests, and you try and reconcile with a species whose sole goal for the past half-a-unit was to annihilate yours the next," he pauses, chuckling solemnly to himself, "I do not get it at all."

"It doesn't really matter if we are all the same victims of ignorance and vain ambition, Arbiter," Cortana speaks up, still willing the ship's carcass from crashing into the Halo below. "But... you rose above and beyond what is asked of you. You co-operated with a species you have been taught were less than rats for all your life. And for that, you have my thanks."

"Likewise. I..." Suddenly, adamantly, he lets go of John's hands, turning his gaze to and fro from him and the Ring outside. "This ship is our only lifeblood, correct? And you both want to live. It will not keep afloat for long if you continue the attitude..."

Cortana could only scoff. "You _do_ know us AI were created with the sole purpose of being able to multitask, right?"

"But surely some part of your processing power is devoted towards striking conversation, is it not?"

Silence.

"Well?" he questions. "You may hate me, but at least do it for the demon..."

Now she just about had it with his demeanours. "Oh, will you quit calling him that?"

"It was never a statement meant to offend. More of a compliment... a brand if you will. Gods, human customs are so confusing..."

Having said his assuaged piece, he scraps his feet from the green menace, hands taut behind his back, willing instead to stare out into depths of space. Out from his maws came the wisps of a barely dawdled breath.

"Should we... perish in this lifetime, demon, Cortana... know that I... I thank you. For showing me the light," the Sangheili roils his tattered shoulders, "...make of my acts of heresy what you will."

A soft smile forms on Cortana's 'face', though Thel couldn't see it. "Who says we have to die?"

As if out of pity... from whatever god or gods out there, the ship's thrusters rumbled a bout of sputtering, soon searing itself alight at five times the intensity. _Thank the gods, _Thel thought, sighing, _the construct has found a way._

Cortana smirks, crossing her non-existent arms. "Ye of little faith."

Soon as she said such, however, the ship thought that it would be in good humour to grumble at just the same intensity. The AI stumbles about before readjusting.

"Well," she clarifies. "At least I _think_ I fixed it. We are riding high on luck and faith now, boys. I don't think that prototype engine core takes kindly to my tinkering..."

He stares at him for a moment, before curtseying in trepidation. The Gravemind really had a hand in burrowing Thel's head out of his scaly, pious arse. John supposes he could give the worm that much credit.

Not that he didn't come out of _that_ cavern kicking and screaming...

"Chief?"

The man turns like so.

"There better be some more luck left in that meter of yours."

Cortana had hoped he would show some humanity... at least once during the mission. Terror, sadness, hysteria - anything! But no, it was same old, same old. This conversation was no exception. "I hope so too."

...

...

John sighs, glancing over to Thel. He mutes his suit's external speaker for a fleeting second. "Thanks for the help, Cortana."

"Because getting you to speak without stuttering once is the least I could do."

* * *

The bomb Cortana had planted brought with it a scale of destruction the likes of which no man has ever born witness to before... and one that no man has ever been more than grateful for.

In the following weeks of the Ring's and High Council's destruction, there in the Covenant's ashes sprouted forth a reconciling... a rekindling, of sorts; both sides of Earth's and Sangheilios' governments warming up to each other as conversation after conversation ebbed on. Of course, there was some tension as with all opposing forces throughout that time. But with Rtas'Vadamee and Doctor Ruth Charet at the helm, they both made sure that no soldier went out of line on their comrades' backs... on either side.

Yes, the Flood's destruction - at least on Installation 08 - was a pyrrhic victory of sorts. The main threat that had opposed all life in the galaxy wielded by its fingertips, although uncertain, had been vanquished. Now, all they _really _had worry about were the Covenant loyalists, the politics between real Sanghelios and Earth...

And wondering just where in the nine planes of hell did John and Thel end up.

Well, at least this war pointed to a single benefit for both of their governments. Through the might and power of the Sangheili, Unggoy and Mgalekgolo races, through the intellect and cultural influence of humanity and her colonies...

A unification had begun.

* * *

"Your bones are showing, Thel."

"It is of no consequence."

For what must have been the umpteenth time in this ship's aimless wander, Cortana lets out a dry scoff. "Bullshit."

"I..." he gazes weakly at his lacking form, his two shaking hands running raunch through with red. To much of Cortana's chagrin, he was eventually coaxed into resting within the tattered remains of the ship's medical bay. Seeing himself hooked and donned in equipment meant for the dying was not amusing... no matter what that damned AI says. No. Not in the least. But she beat him there. "Fine," he begrudgingly admits. "I admit; my stomach lacks much, if at all; but not as I still draw breath will I be a burden to you. Not as I still yet live I shall stop fighting. I will pull through... as I always have."

"Can you look at this guy. Look, you are not testosterone personified. And you are certainly _not_ a god. Thel, as much as I hate to admit, you are currently not as pampered as the Chief; he still can go on for weeks. You? I don't think so. Cryo's busted, so that leaves us pretty bare of options.

"And you know what _really_ grinds my gears above all else? You _know_ this. You thought of your travesty of a decision, and you went through with it. Why are so against living?"

"And if _you _die for my sake, what then? No, I am willing to take my chances. I am expendable. My passing would serve as a betterment for all living kind. You are heroes, servants of the highest order. But of I? May as well be a living, breathing, wandering sack of _meat_."

"_And_ unlike your bastard prophets, we have _standards_," she retorts. "None of us gets left behind. No one."

"Sometimes it is for the best, construct. Even if that means it is at the expense of one. What more is there to worry? It might look a travesty upon humanity, but to starve to death for the rest of your comrades? A sacrifice warranting a blessing from the gods themselves. I am a burden no matter the angle you dare to gaze from. Discard of me and you will have one less man to provide for."

"But your death won't in any way benefit us. Like, at all. At best, you will be the ship's flagship fly attracter."

Wind blowing, his good fist slams upon the medical bed's mattress, weak as it already was. "What you think of my corpse matters not! Me dying is good enough."

"Oh, and here we go again with the suicide talk. You have been speaking in circles for the better part of 3 units!"

"I'd rather speak in circles than be a burden to the living any longer-"

"You have got to be fucking _kidding_ me."

His mandibles flay shut, pupils standing at but a knife's edge. For what reason had warranted her to abandon all notions of civility right there and then must have been mighty serious-

"Asteroid belt," she eventually, barely, almost inaudibly, mutters. "2,937,163 units away from the _Forward Unto Dawn_."

Oh.

Ooohhh... That's bad. He knew that the current infrastructure of the UNSC vessel was pretty much done for - the immediate periphery of the damned thing being little more than the aftermath of the world's first forerunning scat orgy - but for it to be this bad?

"Shit. Nothing's ever so simple, is it? You do one right you get slapped across the face with another wrong! The world's most biased scaling system..."

Thel had to agree with this assessment. He grunts, daring to move his aching back by the window sill directly adjacent to the belt. Alas, appearing to be little more than ants from this distance were the rocks. They'd better move if that's the case... lest they wished their final evolution to look like that of pancakes.

"Sucks when you don't really have a say in the matter, doesn't it?" He can sense her processing power already moving onto more urgent pastures. Before he could gather his bearings, however, Cortana found it necessary she said one last piece. "Arbiter, whatever happens in this life or the next... it's been an honour serving with you. And I mean it this time."

"I-" he turns his head and coughs, saliva and slime smeared onto the window. Naturally, it did not take long for Thel to get a grip of himself. "Likewise, construct," he manages to rasp, slowly shifting into a position where he could more comfortably manoeuvre. "Likewise."

* * *

**As you can see, the end is slightly AU. Through some unforeseen event the _Forward Unto Dawn_ was split apart rather than the portal. Anyway, bringing _just _Chief and Cortana along would make for a pretty boring story, all things considered... ****So why not make it three?**

**(I'd _love _feedback, by the way. Did I Shakespeare-rictify Thel too much?) **

**Thanks for reading!**


	2. Totem

Armour, check. Weapons, check. Energy c-conserva-

His claws placate itself onto the hallway's smooth skin. Hot, laboured breaths gush from his throat.

Yeah. Not so much.

But Thel ventures on despite himself, how famished his body was...

He didn't know what it was about his entire body feeling as if it was about to disintegrate into little more than fleshy dust, but it definitely gave him _less_ pause in ultimately getting on with it. Funny how can a life-threatening situation manage to motivate all of us to do the little things faster.

And if you had asked him to walk a hundred units right after this... his stature would most definitely crumble.

Still donning his guard of Silverite lamina, he half-races, half-hobbles his way around the ship's still intact interior before promptly waddling in breathless steps onto the docking bay proper. Sure, he and Cortana had been going at each other for the past 8 units or so, but he could have been given directions, at least...

Human architecture was _baffling_.

Stepping onto the podium, it surprised him little that the demon already stood by his equipment, his UNSC-assembled rifle on hand. For what use there is for weaponry when it's the ship itself heading along a crash course into what has got to be the worst ever space mosh-pit, he hasn't a clue. Force of habit, perhaps?

"Boys?" hailed a voice from above.

The Sangheili shifts his sightlines up the walls... finally settling onto the ceiling edges. For John to do like so was pointless. Not two units later, the construct calls out through the speakers once more. "Thel, see the seats opposite of Chief?" He does. "Well, you better strap onto them. Both of you. This next ride is probably going to be the bumpiest of your lives."

Before Thel could even voice out his concerns, it seems that the Chief had already read his mind perfectly. "Do you know what's on the other side?"

"That's the thing. I don't.

"Navigation's busted to high hell - can't help us. Comm.'s down, too; tried to boot it up again and again but it just doesn't work like it's supposed to... God. Look, I gotta be honest with you. There's as much chance of us dying as there is actually finding a way out of this place. All I know is that... if we don't do this, we still are probably going to die, regardless. And even if we _do_ somehow miraculously survive, Thel's a goner, too. The universe needs you, Thel - even if don't think that way."

He scoffs, though Cortana was sure it was to himself.

"So, no," she continues. "I can't really say for sure or even hypothesise what will happen with data that does not even exist yet, but I know one thing's for certain; when I flip open this thing's slip-space function, the prototype engine core is going to function in every way but normal. It could be a stroll in the woods and, a-and we are just stressing too much. It could be this Great Journey the Covenant kept blabbering on about. Hell, we could even warp ourselves into a miniature wormhole cos that's how dense Thel is!

"But whatever happens next, unless you wanna become the ship's bootstrap pinata for the next half a unit, I suggest you do as I say."

The Arbiter did as he was told, though not long before murmuring lightly at the jab at his pride. The two soldiers held no objections there. Whatever purpose this 'Play-Doh' served for the children of humanity, Thel didn't really feel like cosplaying as one today. At least, that's not the way he would have wanted to die.

His visors come up; his suit's rebreather systems seem to be working as they should be. Some time tinkering later, the two of them manage to secure themselves - both their feet planted on the ground, fingers whitening on the straps. It was simply their instinctual manner of preparing for when this trip goes horribly wrong. Not that it'd shield them from the cold vacuum of space...

_'Launching in 10... 9... 8...' _

So... this is the end of the road for Thel. Ill, home-sick and starved of energy.

_'7... 6...'_

Not in the clamour of honour and glory... not in the libation of blood streaming down his mandibles and chest...

_'5... 4...'_

But in a scintillating, grazing blaze of fire and technological glint.

_'3...'_

Not the preferred way he would have died but... it was fitting. Thel spares a brief glance at Chief, only for his gesture to be for nought. The demon which donned green simply looked at the ground, not wavering in his movements. Not wavering in the belief that his construct yet possessed the capacity to wiggle them out of their predicament... alive and well.

Ah, the joys of youthful optimism...

Yes, he eventually decided. It was fitting he would die side by side with his human comrade. It was fitting he atoned for his sins.

_'2...'_

His eyes shutter shut. One final, suspiring sigh.

_'1.'_

"Hold onto your butts."

And with a final jerk of upheaval, the remains of the _Forward Unto Dawn _flare out of existence - a trail of scrap metal and debris wafting in empty space in its wake. But whether it returns... remains to be seen.

* * *

Chief never knew that the sky being the colour green could look so eerie...

Or feel immensely like shit.

His once dead eyes now open.

The soldier groans, arms and legs and head... all of them, quivering in equal amounts of exhaustion and shock. Every movement seems to bring with it a spike of pain, every breath was some labour to take in of itself; he dared not think how it would feel to walk. It felt as if the innards of the ship was dipped in a vat of acid so strong that some of it managed to leak through his MJOLNIR. His eyes survey the immediate area. Overcast were the ship's cracks, the sky outside bathed in a colour too green to ever be considered natural. To his surprise, the _Forward Unto Dawn_, for all that remains of it, made it out in mostly one piece. John was just surprised they made it out on one piece at _all_.

_"Chief?"_ calls a sudden voice. While couldn't say for sure who it was for all the ringing that plagued his ears... his head, weak as it is, stood at mast - almost on instinct. In all likeliness, however, it was probably-_ "Chief! I know you can hear me! Don't you dare make me activate the defibrillator again!"_

That message, he got. Right away it seemed.

"I am up! I am up!" he cries out, arms flailing about the place, muting his external speakers just in case. If not to hide his utter embarrassment in general, at least to save face from a certain judgemental Sangheili. "Cortana, please!"

The AI snickers brazenly to herself. "Works every time."

His hands fly to both his ears, both feeling a tad bit sensitive themselves.

"Yes... yes, it does." Thoughts exchanged, the Chief grunts weakly in his seat as he struggles in vain to find the latch's release. Through sheer luck, however, he eventually finds it - and promptly clicks the button.

This time, he didn't let the winding of surprise get the better of him. Chief lands on his two feet, rolling a cartwheel just for good measure. He gives himself a quick shake of the head before properly accessing the situation.

From left to right were the remains of the tattered podium; bits and pieces of equipment filled the floor. For all intents and purposes, he knew that the crash they suffered was quite bad given that it managed to knock the wind out of both Arbiter and John... but he didn't expect for it to be _this_ bad. The descending slope of their directional tangent wasn't _that_ unorthodox. Speaking of which... oh. Oh no.

"Arbiter!" he cries, pivoting his weightful form. There laid wheezing in toil and agony on the ground, next and underneath of a heap of metal debris... was Thel... with a piece of metal lodged into the right of his stomach. The rod had driven itself through his innards. Blood seeped through the pores, leaked through the rupture his armour suffered. In every direction, splinters of bone protruded blotchily out of his right thigh. His left arm bent in a position where it never was supposed to bend... and, and the lacerations - limitless and boundless. "Cortana, why didn't you-?!"

"I-I only retreated to my data chip just before the ship crashed, I didn't expect... oh no."

He didn't think, he didn't care... he only ran as fast as his aching legs took him. Before long, John falls onto his knees before the wounded giant, a freshly ejected bio-foam kit on his person at the ready. Chief really wished Thel isn't conscious once he eventually yanks out the rod... and in all fairness, the sheer _extent_ of his injuries should have knocked him out cold. But Thel wasn't your ordinary Sangheili...

"Thel," spiels John, eyes still heavy. "If you can hear-"

Thel's torso jerks right; two eddied bloodshot eyes soon stare at him back. Whether they'd stay that way is another tall tale. "L-loud and clear - _unh!_ \- de-demon..."

Chief sweeps the dust and debris that had befallen on the Arbiter's body. The damage must have been right awful for Thel to have grunted each and every time Chief's armour grazed. Having memorised top to bottom what to do should a comrade was in immense pain, John speaks. "Must have been one hell of a fall..."

Arbiter almost looked tempted to laugh, but the rod that had called his abdomen home had something to say about it. Merely collapsing his chest was a pain the Sangheili had never known before, and one that he had better come acquainted with. "Gods-damned strap c-couldn't hold me in," he finally rasps, throwing a coughing fit. "U-URGH! _Entu rakooeium rooek a'ul!_"

"Hang in there, Thel," transmits Cortana from the MJOLNIR's external speakers. "Chief has self-administrative bio-gel already on hand."

Ever the stubborn Sangheili he is, however, he defies her. "NO!" he protests, attempting to raise up his back only fall back in vain. "T-the demon needs it m-more than me, more than I ever will. Look at my damned form, c-can you not see? I, I am the epitome of patheticness. Whining, bleeding, weeping on the f-floor like an old _woman_. _To think I was adorned with the title of 'Arbiter'. Hah! _My cowardice knows no bounds. Put an end to my sorry existence. If not for the demon, at least do it for me. Please... I, I know not how much longer I can take this..."

"You living is a non-negotiable, Thel," grunts Chief, steeling his hands around the rod. What he was about to do, Thel probably would never forgive for some time...

"Not even the gods could possibly fathom how you can pull me out of this rut without me bleeding to death. Do not bother with the rod. Put my blade to good use; send me upon whatev-AAARGGGH!"

And then he did. The rod clanks upon the bruised flooring. Thel's eyes seemed to have stretched wider than any his kind had before. It conveyed one thing, and one thing only. Pain.

"_G-Garei aneenee!_" screams Thel. Chief firmly plants his hand on Thel's squirming figure, not long before drenching generous amounts of bio-gel atop his wounds. The Sangheili thrashed and thrashed and thrashed, as if the gel had been a jar of poison. At last, after half a unit, the cascade ended. Chief stores away the device, careful not to spend it all on himself later on. Supplies were stretched thin as it is. But for the Arbiter of the Sangheili, such an expenditure of resources was worth it. More so than just a one-man army like Chief was.

But the Arbiter was anything but grateful for the help. The pain must have clouded his mind not to get the Chief's message. More than once had the thought of death crossed his mind; why did they not get the message? "W-Why have you done such a thing?"

"Well," he starts. "I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't scanned it first. If any of your organs were in the way, Arbiter, I would never have risked it; and even then, I would have tried to carry you, _rod inside or not_."

And thank the forerunners _that _tidbit of embarrassment had not yet born fruit...

The Sangheili frowns. How uncomfortable it would be! "But the copious amounts of bio-gel use is pointless," he says, in spite of his pain. "You do know that there's no telling if any life exists outside this ship, right?"

"There's no telling if there isn't as well. There's as likely a chance for either of them to come true," Cortana voices.

Thel sputters a fit of coughs, spurting forth a rush of blood-mixed vapour out of his throat. "If I hadn't k-known better, construct, I would have thought you were luring us all - _urgh_ \- t-to a false sense of security."

"Optimism is relative, Thel. Me? I am just trying to make it through this without going prematurely rampant."

It was not long after dusting off Thel's shoulders before Chief helped him up. His good arm drapes around Chief's back like the world's coarsest scarf. And with a hearty grunt, Chief lifts his comrade up to chest level. The extent of the Chief's aid was not nearly enough to extend to the rest of his body.

"We need out," Chief throttles. "Cortana, lift the docking bay weir. Wear..."

Cortana fills in the blanks for him. "Actually, that won't be necessary. It's breathable for the most part. Just scanned it. Though, I can only go by your suit's peripheral sensors. You are my eyes from now on."

"Noted."

After what must have been a good 30 meters of agonized limping, the two reach the weir, finally. It starts to open, how slow it was. Thel breathes a dubious sigh. "Hopefully, this next endeavor shall explain the sky bleeding green."

Cortana decides to interject too. "Yeah. As if it's out of some Tolkien flick."

"Toll... what?"

"Oh, human thing. Unless you want to hear about it...?"

"I think my ears are taxed enough as it is." A short chuff. "No, I would rather I hold onto my sanity, thank you."

Halfway there, now. But even as the gate still raised, the trio spot... something... a black, almost cylindrical object jutting from the ground and into the sky. That could only mean one thing...

Civilisation.

By God, Thel stands a chance at making it!

But by the time three-fourths of the structure had revealed itself, they were a little less hopeful than before. For although the building still raised in height, not a single window pane was in sight. It makes it all the more likely that this belongs to some upstart company both the Covenant and the UNSC were not privy of knowledge to.

And when the gate had fully cleared itself... the three of them, the AI included, could not contain their awe.

Or in Cortana and Thel's case... terror.

"What is this new devilry..." the Sangheili mutters.


	3. Bother

"How about that? Like a bootleg Minas Morgul."

"For the..." Though feeling as if he had already been run over by a contingent of brutes well over a quintillion times, he felt it appropriate that he spared his piece of mind for the time being. Thel turns his lolled back, microscopic lacerations fighting stringent against the Sangheili's efforts. "I _\- urgh -_ h-have experienced a lot of things in my life, short as it is. I l-led, _gods, _led a band of barely controllable Jiralhanae, conversed with a deaf Mgalekgolo, e-even made bonds with a company of Unggoy! But the one thing that has always left me eluded is your brand of humour!" He broils his head sideways, careful not to graze any more of his exposed flesh upon the forest he scuttled through. "You m-make short work of anything wi, within your line of sight. Either you l-lot exist on another plane of r-reality, or I am the dullest man in the galaxy. _URF!_"

There really wasn't any more that needed to be said about it. Spiralling gyro mechanism atop a metallic tower spewing green torrents of whatever ungodly material _that _mass of gas was up into the heavens and beyond? Clearly, the author had remained very faithful to the source material.

_CREAK!_ The trio swiftly swing their sights to the thing that stationed directly next to it.

Oh, then there's that tall squid looking ship collecting an unagreeable mixture of soil and grime, not moving an inch from its space – not even a twitch. If that didn't scream ancient, they didn't know what would. And it made all the more tempting for them to abandon all pretences of silence and charge in with a vengeance; their primary motivation: to find out why the hell that ship was simply _left _there to brave the might of nature.

Their secondary: to gape at the thing's concept artist. Well, it was more so for Cortana – but still.

An over-productive AI's ramblings aside, the three unlikely comrades move on still… through the shrubbery and unkempt turmoil of the local ecosystem – long since having fled what should have been Thel's final resting place. If you had told the whole of Sanghelios that Shipmaster _'Vadamee_ would be the one to piss on the band's merry parade, they would have labelled you a staunch heretic.

Yet, there Chief and Cortana were, hauling a severely injured Thel along at a snail's pace. Oh, how allegiances have turned…

"I mean, not all diamonds _have_ to be bright," Cortana felt the need to continue. If not to cull her own sense of overwhelming excitement, at least to take the battered Sangheili's mind off the sheer nerve-ending _pain_.

And it appears that it had. "Ah, of course," he coarsely replies, grunting each and every time the slope of their pathway had raised. "T-that goes _– URGH –_ w-without saying. One l-looks aesthetically p-pleasing, and the o-other, the aftermath of fifty Jiral, Jirallhanae taking a collective shit."

She chortles her proboscis canals out, rolling her beaming eyes. "And what would _that _look like?"

The Sangheili blows a deeply maimed scoff. "Tartarus."

"And your brand of humour is any better? So on the nose…"

"Rather it be there than fifty stories over my head."

They were nearing the base of the tower now, cutting through the forest's foliage as best they could. As much as it was amusing for Cortana to prolong this batch of much needed tête-à-tête, Thel really did need a physician.

She glances over his leg. _An open cut pouring through what may as well be a mini-waterfall. _

Her visors – though merely made up – widen. Sheesh. And fast.

Thel and John hack through what finally had looked to be the last bit of thorns – and it certainly had _better _been; this endeavour was becoming tedious as it is.

True to their estimation, the path they took cuts off, their trail coming up to what looked to be a steep, albeit short descent. Having no other intention otherwise, the two soldiers leapt. Two pairs of feet meeting the ground with a _SCRUNCH! _later, they raise their sightlines once more.

There, the two giants from before yet remained, as tranquil and eerie as ever. For all the technologically wonders it would have cost to construct the machines, this place sure felt abandoned.

"You would have thought these people would protect their investment," enters Chief, still providing Thel with the support he needed.

"I t-think – _GAH! – _it was merely a matter of survival," Thel responds, gazing upwards to the spiralling sky above. "W-would not be surprised in the least if the sp-spores have already _reached _here."

"Sure doesn't look that way, though," the bumbly AI interjects. "No heat signatures, no wind movement – well, aside from that thing above… from every available MJOLNIR combat feature, I can't find a single lifeform _in general_ to save my life. It's as if we are alone."

The Arbiter theorised otherwise. "Best be wary, however. The Gravemind is nothing if not enigmatic. Should it come to it, do… do not hesitate."

"Should it come to that, I will lodge a quintillion bullets up the Gravemind's arse _myself_."

"I…" A twitch of his mandibles. "I don't think it works like that."

…

His lenses enlarge. "Oh. H-human humour. Right."

Staring down and shaking his head, John ventures on still. Eventually, what was once a dirt road diverged at a delta of metal – of sorts. _All _of those layers of wobbly chunks, pointing towards a metal walkway facing north.

The seemingly abandoned locale seemed to have some sort of courtesy for itself, it appeared. The ground looked pristine – green light bounces off its surface, an azure-like tint streaked the walkway bare.

Well, if _this_ wasn't inviting. Yeah, the three of them were not buying it.

"This is the most suspicious walkway that I ever had the pleasure of venturing," remarks Thel, though not long before flinching his mandibles at his broken leg clipping the pathway. "_GURGH!_ N-not that I would have much say in the m-matter."

The trio continue despite themselves. The 30-second spell of bio-gel may not be enough to quench the Sangheili's thirst.

It did not take long before they reach what seemed to be the tower's entrance. Around the edges of the wall by which they were staring at are subtle indents, sculpting the entire encapsulant in a rectangular-shaped block.

"Don't think _open-sesame_ works on this thing?"

"Cortana, pleas-"

"Okay, okay! You Spartan-II's can't catch a break… You lot act more robot than you do human…" A pause – an obvious sign of the AI thinking long and hard. "Alright, can't remotely assess the tower's inner systems. Chief, see if you can't find me an ingress – any plug will do. No known records of this design have ever been logged, but with an opening I can at least _try_."

"Roger."

Gently setting Thel on a pillar that extended through the doorway veranda, Chief went to do as he was told. The demon walks for a spell…

And…

Lo and behold, some sort of electronic device perked to the right of the entrance gate.

Chief soon hovers his right hand close to it. If the blue gave him any indication, Cortana was already doing the deed. She'd better work faster, lest the Sangheili chokes on his own blood; Thel's wheezes were already loud enough.

Took a long time for her to respond by AI standards – 20 seconds. He was well aware those matrixes of hers weren't designed to take anything out of the ordinary at face value…

"That's weird…" she soon whispers through Chief's comms. "You'd think there would be AI – a callgirl – or something other than… whatever _this _is. This… this is rudimentary!"

Chief tilts his head – clearly bewildered at the AI's inability to properly comprehend. "How so?"

At that – Cortana decided it was best for him to cast judgement for himself. In a jiff, his combat HUD flares to life in all its orange-blazed glory…

…only for it to show some poor generic Sci-Fy attempt at a circuit-enclosed woman…?

_"We are sorry,"_ the figure blankly drones. Whatever the proprietors of this joint had in mind for a super-secret headquarters, clearly, not much thought had been given to the digital side of things. _"Access to the Receptacle is strictly circumscribed to employees who carry on their person Omni-Class Wisperian RF-identification cards. Please wait patiently as security dispatches a team to deal with you and your compatriots. You will not get far on foot." _

From then on, the message only repeated. Again and again, not wavering in message – same tone, same voice.

The Arbiter – who Cortana had also graciously relayed the message to, much to her dismay – chuckles heartily, bucking the back of his skull onto the beam he leaned on. "Something tells me our patrons do not wish company."

Cortana grumbles. "That's not what weirds me out the most. It's… they aren't even following up on their _own_ voiced threats; let alone use English. Translating their language was easy but… can't detect any of this 'security' movement whatsoever on their end." She scoffs. "Thank God they had the brains to isolate their central servers somewhere in this thing."

Not two moments later, the entrance gateway unfastens as promised. Cortana made short work with their security. But the way it opened screamed ancient. A place of ruin that had not been scathed for the better part of a thousand years…

As it raised, it rasped; it bleated; it groaned. Even in the midst of such mystical, architectural wonder, the gate voiced with the intensity of an old man well past his twilight years scaling up a set of stairs. It took a while before the dust completely lifted.

From his resting place, Thel was the first to bear witness to the building's edifices. Without any source of illumination, little could be discerned the true contents of its purpose. But Cortana's assumptions rang true to the Sangheili: it was as if nobody had stepped foot within it for millennia.

Naturally, Chief followed suit – being the kind of soldier who got straight to the point. Though the soldier did not voice anything out loud, Thel knew it slightly unnerved him as well.

As per usual, it did not take long for Cortana to voice her _invaluable _input. "Barely lit hallway, check. Dust settled on every nook and cranny, check. Yeah, clear grounds not to employ the 'let's head forth with reckless abandon' rule." She spares a glance at Thel's still bleeding form. "But I'd rather not have a putrid-as-all-hell corpse breathing down my neck – so let's get this over and done with."

Thel smiles. "I'm touched."

And true to their nature, they once more headed forth into the hallway, limping Thel in tow.

With reckless abandon.


	4. Prayer

…

_You may want to run that by them again_. The two soldiers had thought of the adjacent rumbling on roughly the same line.

The structure they were gaping at, this gyro that was buried deep into the building – something this fantastical should reserve absolutely no right of existing within the realms of reality, much less look perfectly functional – if the control point below it gave them any indication. The green substance warding off into the heavens outside, at least they can somewhat believe; humanity had invented a similar mechanism in the last breaths of the Human-Covenant War.

But this was stooping to fantasy-levels of ridiculousness. Around them was a hall bearing resemblance to… a… a cathedral, of sorts; the closest comparison the armoured soldier could think of would be a rural Church, and even then, it wouldn't have looked so grand as… this. Yes, it was indeed spacious; undoubtedly the size of three football stadiums. In the centre of it all, surrounded by power generators they couldn't count on a thousand hands, covered in wires which seemed to have been hooked on wherever… was a key-shaped device. Sprouted forth from its topmost layer was the green mass they observed not just 15 minutes ago; its centre body, a piece of engineering wonder well beyond either of the soldiers to technically comprehend.

And all Cortana received in return were two incredulous stares. Well, along with one suppressed one, at least; John sure as hell made it seem that it was only his Sangheili friend that was annoyed. Obviously, Chief dared not retort his one of his only friends. Though a hardened soldier on the surface, he yet remained a shy, over-protective toddler at heart. Talk about paternity issues…

In what should have been on John's ball-court, Thel delivered in his absence instead. "A-and you decided to spare us of this crucial, CRU-CIAL piece of information, because…"

She sputters out annoyed _blotches_. Now it was her turn to stare. "Because unlike the Huragok, Thel – I can't just jury-rig a comm. system to do whatever I please. God, so spoilt…"

"The machinery stretches all through this damned place," he gruffly remarks, resting his form on a wall conveniently erected next to them. "Y-you mean to tell us that… e-even this 'security' held no priviness of the buil - _agh – _b-building's layout itself?"

"Well, there doesn't _seem_ to be any other explanation," she responds – more so to herself, if anything. "Normally, scenarios like those are only attributed to people possessing governmental intelligence of the highest hierarchal order. UNSC did something similar with John's group, poor souls…"

"So, a medical bay is not that far out of the imagination?" Chief offers.

"Eh…" the AI burrs. "Maybe? Who knows at this point; what with that thing regurgitating that… whatever that is. Worth a try, I say."

Unbeknownst to Chief, Cortana was already making stringent headway in initiating the MJOLNIR's echolocation systems.

…

It similarly did not take her long to come to the conclusion that she didn't like what she sensed.

Or rather, _couldn't_ sense.

She scrabbles her scalp naked. The AI opens her output speakers for both of them to hear. "Never in my life have I ever seen a place lacking such basic – no – bare-bones facilities, at best… and yet, here we are."

The wearer tilts his helmet sideways. "What do you mean?"

"Chief, I can't detect… _anything_. Not one lavatory, not one empty space; as in rooms. And… and no medical facility." Her tone was showing her usual feverish colours now – AI programs were _not_ built for abnormalities. To present Cortana one so late into her life cycle was not the wisest of decisions. "Oh, God. Thel…"

But John, ever the friendly giant he is, rests a lending hand on her tired shoulders. "Then we resume our search. As we always have."

"Yeah?" She spares a glance at the Sangheili. "Well, you better make it quick, John."

An empty lament hails her back. "I know." Chief turns back around, bobbing. "Arbiter?"

A pained gaze grazes through his visors. "_URGH! _C-coming."

Just before Chief could make any move to help the Sangheili up, however, Thel barges into his headspace.

"No! No!" he cries, digging claws onto his one upended knee. "When others would have made short work of me, y-you have gone out of your way to… _URGH…_ And, and I a-am tired of using the demon as my crutch; I have… _have_ passed the stage of the s-smart Alek long ago… But… I much a-appreciate the gesture.'

The soldier simply nods. John didn't really know why the Arbiter had to stress every single vowel he so spoke – as if his life depended on it; he didn't have a problem one way or the other. Maybe the Sangheili was part of the Shakespeare Club?

Didn't matter, leastways. Chief was simply, much, _much_ more concerned of the impending ambush that Cortana had apparently 'forgotten' to mention. It may as well have been tradition at this point.

And it seemed that Thel thought the same way, if the scowl on his face gave the soldier any pretence. Their time on the Ring together told them of their luck loud and clear.

"Construct," Thel rasps, still on the process of making his way to John. "You seem immeasurably sure of yourself that no—"

_GRUMBLE…_

Why, fool the Arbiter thrice! For not two moments after Thel's _moderately_ liberal comments, a rude interruption came in the form of the building experiencing a rather intense constipation conundrum.

Thel, though still in pain, has yet the fortitude to quip. "It seems that this place has a tandem for dramatic effect…"

It was all he could utter before the ground grumbled in response. Through force of habit, Chief raises two fingers to the right of his visor. "Cortana, any way out of this soup sandwich?"

And…

No, copy? He hadn't experienced this much silence since she was taken 'hostage'. Though he supposes a scenario like that was never really that far-fetched. He has seen the Covenant pull much greater lengths than capture a mere AI.

But this? He was completely left in the dark. And now, he supposes, the phrase had taken on a meaning for too literal for his comforts. "Cortana?" his voice raises, all the while racing to Thel's needed behest. This place seemed to be burrowing itself inside out.

Still nothing. "Can you hear me?"

…

"…Cortana?"

Little did he know the silence that would soon follow would stand proud and tall as the lengthiest.

* * *

…

* * *

"Cortana, do you read?"

* * *

…

* * *

"Cortana?!"

* * *

_Your companion is no longer here._

* * *

And with merely six words, the Chief was frozen still.

For a fleeting, most fleeting moment, he held against his knees. Exhorted his every want to crumble onto the ground and dig into the metal bleeding and gashing.

Before Thel.

But he held strong still, making extra sure that their chosen pathways at least guaranteed them safe passage out of this hellhole. It took some of the most efforted turning of his life and…

There! Out the gap of the gate they came from – a crack of light! Chief could worry about getting Cortana out of here later. Present matters took precedence.

Much, much more precedence.

And all the while in their well-intentioned escape… out came from John's parched lips…

Was a barely audible murmur. "I don't understand."

It did not take long for the voice to—

_Another harvest, another bother. So fickle. _

It was everywhere. The walls; the ground; the suit; his very mind. And both balled over in pain.

_We admit, we haven't anticipated for a species to progress in technology so quickly… much less possess a matrix so complicated. But alas, it was nearing the end of its life cycle._

Without his knowledge, his iron grip on Thel only tightened further, drawing an unheard cry of pain. The storm in his mind stirred so furious, bathed so crimson – and his eyes only saw red. "What did you do with her?!"

_Only gave it… excuse me, her, a little nudge. Bah. It matters little in the end. The sooner we get the starting process over and done with, the sooner you will get to see her. So spare us your time and ours. It will merely be a sting. _

"Are you Cove…"

But Thel appeared to have some choice words to say too. "Believe me, demon," he growls. "I would have told you something so significant long ago."

After what seemed to Chief an incredibly smug chuckle, it spoke once more. _We are afraid what your four-lipped friend here said was true. We…_

And it dared to pause. A voice so eternal, so ancient – an evil which dripped and yipped in the throes of their very souls – and it gave pause to utter an expression so mortal and _weak_?!

_Look, _the voice seemed to consider. _Don't tell anyone once you enter consensus… but we occupy a significant outpost. And since we feel a little more generous than usual this cycle – such is our boredom – we can pull some strings. Your friend was sent to high places – not that she hadn't fought tooth and nail out of it – but regardless… we can get you there. I haven't had a proper Assimilation in _years_. Though, I don't think you docked here intentionally… _

"And y-you think either of us will drop whatever we are doing to simply join you? You have to present a better case than that…" Thel spits.

_You seem rather eager to drop, too. _A pause. Now, if this thing hadn't a love for dramatic _flair_..._ Just not in our benefit. _

Yet the Arbiter remained unmoving in expression – only a hateful glower greeted… whoever that was in return. "If you wish to bring out of me – out of us – fuel to feed your antics, you will not find a drop here."

_But your introduction will not be a conventional one, we assure you._

They were then bathed in a red – most red – ruddiness of light. You couldn't argue that they had put in their best efforts to shield themselves, but this was far too strong for any mere organic to handle. Yes, a laser would be the more accurate way of describing its intensity, but they weren't gusted into little more than ashes just yet.

Chief's MJOLNIR suit adjusting where Thel's had failed, he peers through the crimson glow, and…

Straight ahead, straight through the door where the trio had entered—

He had to adjust his visors again. He had to; this couldn't… no, this must have been one of those weird fever dreams ONI had told him about in training! And yet, even after all John's struggling to re-calibrate his suit, even after all his sheer will and might, the two soldiers must come to face the harsh reality of the situation.

They were being stared down by a fucking _squid._

_Hello there._

"GET DOWN!"

And in but a moment, all they saw through their visors was red.


	5. Spill

**AU: To those wanting answers: be patient! We are only 10k words in, which is not a whole lot. You are learning events as the group does, and they are, too, confused as all hell. If I hate plot holes as much as I already do, then in all likeliness I will probably hammer them out. Stick around and all will be answered…**

* * *

"Demon! I know you take a liking to… to these 'waf-fles', but your obsession is getting ridiculous!"

Chief grunts, hauling a hobbling Thel as best he could. Behind them, shrapnel fly and bite at their armoured back; all the more reason they should get on their asses and _move it_! "Maybe if you hadn't decided to _embezzle_ them all on the _Dawn_, then we'd move faster!"

Thel sputters. "You dare—" …not long before buckling over in pain, bloodied palms on his ears. "ARGH…!"

_Ugh. Burnt foods… _the voice decides to _invaluably_ add to the consensus. _Simply disgusting…_ _You'd be better off with eating animal dung!_

"Don't say, I didn't, warn you when the – _HNGH_ – Belgians decide to skewer a – _huff_ – thousand hockey sticks up your ass…" He and Thel manage to manoeuvre just before a bout of the squid's red menace bounced off the dome's shields.

They weren't having a good time. The past three minutes was them attempting to make it back inside, narrowly avoiding the laser streams that ship decided to lob at their asses every once in a while. And that was putting it in very generous terms.

It took a few more streams of laser to make them get the message – a hint of what kind of structure this place really was: this building – or whoever commissioned to build the gyro – had a knack for technical engineering. Even with the added destructive force of the ship's lasers, the machinery's barrier which seemed to emanate out of nothing from the ground held itself solid with a vengeance. Not one stream managed to pass through its shields and damage this gyro mechanism. Clearly, it was a device that held great importance – and by all accounts – it was probably specially commissioned by the military. But gawking about potential tech for the UNSC hardly mattered now. Not when they could involuntarily metamorphosise into ashes at any one second.

It also seemed that Cortana had also as much special awareness as John did. She must have already been compromised well before they had entered the building for her _not_ to point out the staircases leading directly below the gyro device. Seeing as they have no other choice, they took their chances. They are already nearing it, as much as that squid's operators demanded them otherwise.

"T-to say the construct hadn't rubbed off on y-you would be, w-would be the understatement of the 'c-century'."

"I drink straight from the tap," John chuffs lightly, as testing as it was to find any humour of the sort in their predicament. "Useful in dangerous situations, if Cortana is to be believed."

"You rely on your AI to c-communicate with others?"

So close to the apparent stairwell, John had a few choice words of his own to impart. "Not everybody can be as socially-competent as you are."

Thel cackles – whether it be out of hysteria or in genuine delight, the soldier couldn't assess. "SARCASM! From the demon? Thought it would be a _cold_ day in hell before…"

Chief quickly thrusts him. "Just shut up and move, split-lip."

"Insults, too! Tell me if it isn't yet the apocalypse!"

They slink down the visually-damning yet spacious entrance in but a few moments, hot-on-its-heels red laser spewing straight from the ship all the while.

Well, it was a lucky thing that killing machine had at least one weakness it did not account for: its size was sorely extant. Couldn't possibly reach them… unless it deployed troops of its own.

Out of breath and peace of mind, Thel collapses his tired form on John – may as well had his entire body weight on the immovable object. Quietly, he whimpers: "Tell no one of this."

"Never intend to."

* * *

They were growing quite accustomed to the Squid thing nagging at them from the Surface.

_It is best you do not delay, organics! Believe me when I say it is painless!_

Thel's head was becoming more of a bobbing puppet, if anything. "W-what's in Prophet's n-name does this h-have to do with us being of f-flesh and blood?

"I couldn't tell you if I had known." He lets out a baseless sigh. "Just keep moving."

Thel and John had been venturing through the halls in shallow breaths for the better part of a while, now; and so far, they might as well have covered no ground. This place may well have been a labyrinth in its foetal phase.

The place they were forcefully stuffed into was atypical to an office space one would find on any of Earth's colonies. But that would be putting it _very _lightly. Beside the empty here were halls which led to dead ends – paths that were suddenly caught off to make way for a dead-drop – some with weapons latched onto the walls, even. It wasn't lost on either of them that this was a conscious design decision. It also was not lost on them this place held anti-Squid-looking-thingy tech. Cos it appeared that this building has crammed a very alluding gag into its mouth...

Wherever it was.

"If the outside wa-wasn't telling enough, t-this, this would seal it," Thel murmurs, hobbling by Chief's side. "We were n-never intended to be here."

"Doesn't mean they thought first-aid was not staple, now. This place seems to reflect that."

John realises that Thel was in slightly better shape, now – the medi-gel had done its work. It wouldn't mean anything if Thel hadn't gotten real treatment for his broken bones, however. Considering the Sangheili had never voiced out about his broken bones once in this pseudo-campaign, the Chief concluded that this wasn't his first rodeo.

Poor extremely-misguidedly-human-glassing Arbiter.

Out of the many corners they rounded, they'd expect one,_ at least_, to bear the ripe fruit for them. Thel didn't want to admit that his body's will drive was already running low. His breaths swam to the shallow end; his vision blinded by an approaching white – never-ending, never-ending. His feet were barely more than weights; and a strange thudding – thudding – thudding – flew with the subtlety of a Mockingbird; came from his…

From his chest.

Thoughts were barely more than bubbles of past lives, now – and the walking plank grew worryingly wobbly.

It was only when he was at his weakest did the two of them finally come across a streak of light by the edge of the wall… a barely noticeable luminosity John was grateful he still had his MJOLNIR visors for. To venture further would bring a dead end.

And a dead Sangheili.

"Hang in there, Thel. Hang in there. Door. Door."

Bursting forth without a key to its name, the hidden door slams on the wall adjacent – dust and grime creeping through; his immediate sight, countless rows of metal tables, mountains of paper stacked on top. Indeed, sprawling from their feet was a red carpet leading directly to a… a lab, of sorts.

Even with the lack of lucidity, Thel knew to tell the difference between what is normal and what is not. Even the dimmest of people could tell this was a central mainframe belong to something… Oh, the gyro mechanism outside, perhaps? It _can't _be.

Laid ahead of them were layers upon unspeakable layers of what seemed to be hand-written… notes. Stacked and unkempt, whoever this belonged to must have left in a hurry. Who'd legitimately use actual _ink _to take down lab notes and not a voice decoder, he will never know.

Though, the language and the format written on those scribes does raise more than a few eyebrows. It did confirm Cortana's earlier theories that this must have belonged to a species ascending that of the Forerunners. But that _still _doesn't explain the squid inconspicuously docked outside and was _somehow _primed to fire in a moment's notice.

"D-demon," Thel pleas, eyes drooping in lethargy. God may as well had put a time-bomb on his head. "Search… dig for _anything_. Pl-pl-please…"

And being the Good Samaritan he was, that, John did. Papers flew when the walls and cabinets were scoured empty. And when the last paper fell, as did the tables.

But the Spartan's luck, it seemed, had run out.

There wasn't anything. Not in any crook, not in any cranny.

"Piss…" lets out Chief. "Thel. Come on. We need to move."

For the millionth time today, he turns. Only to find the stubborn-ass Sangheili nowhere to be found. "Thel?"

It did not immediately occur to him that the Arbiter had sought to take matters into his own hands.

"Oh, no…"

So he ran.

Followed the blood trail the Arbiter had left behind. Broken glass. Turned tables. He scampered through the damned meadow he created. How could he have been so stupid not to spare occasional glances towards him?!

And then he saw. Straight ahead, directly facing opposite the doorway they had initially come from… was an unbolted doorway. Chief did not understand, he, he looked everywhere! True, John had been mistaken, as did in the many times he had before. Be it with Kelly, be it with Cortana.

But that hardly matters now. Not when Thel was stuck in the middle of it all. Literally, this time.

As the Chief lobbed his feet closer, what he saw in the hallway Thel had walked defied all manner of logic. Nowhere in Physics' textbooks does it say a beam seemingly made out of nothing could carry a life form across. It seems that Physics had let it slip _just_ this once.

John scowls. Urgh. Jealousy was a cruel mistress.

A dome, ever-expanding, surrounds a spear-like mechanism. The object spreads throughout its diameter as if it owned the place, all the while emanating a strange white light in the middle. A similar gyro spans around the light – and in the centre of it all… were two connection nodes spurred into the ground, one knob adorning each their tops. Whatever this was used for, it sure drew a ton of inspiration from religious ceremonies. Hell, maybe it was – just technologically complex in nature.

While John otherwise would have given Cortana the helm in unknowns like this, it also occurred to him that she _wasn't _present at the moment – and Thel may well have been limping to his death. What compelled the Sangheili to forgo his usual, reasonable self?

Well, other than the blood in his brain draining fast, that is. But does that explain Thel limping almost in a trance-like manner? Or him moving with his two arms raised like a zombie for that matter?

The demon could only come up with one theory – and one theory only. Thel had been compromised. In more ways than one.

…

_Ah, **shit**. _

Chief, bruised and battered every manner and place possible, gives chase.

* * *

_"I go forth… _

_"I go…_

_"Forth. _

_"On my Great Journey…"_

_Arbiter!_

_"I go… to repent."_

_NO!_

_"I shall pay for every soul…"_

_THEL! SNAP OUT OF IT!_

_"Pay for every life…"_

_STOP! THIS ISN'T YOU! DON'T!_

_"I have taken."_

_THEL, YOU IDIOT! YOU ARE HALLUCINATING! IT, IT'S A RUSE! ALL OF IT! STOP! GET OUT!_

_"If this is what it takes… to let the demon live…"_

_VADAMEE! _

_"Then so be it."_

His open palm forms around the gyro's knob. His neck, tense, swings high... higher, higher. And in a reservoir of jade, the fountain of life gushes.

The Arbiter screams.

* * *

Outside, the gyro fastens. Electricity fed its core, building, building. The pressure eventually surmounts. A peak, well past the point of no return.

And in a prudish blaze of glory, a vision-blinding beam no less than fury in physical form – shot – from its superseding central core. The conduit above the building turned, spewed the beam from its upmost tip, straight for the swirling clouds which dared reside above. The planet's surface was soon bathed in a sickly bout of green, the 'squid' twitching from the all-blinding light. Hastily, the clouds made way, cutting through all manner of obstacles, before finally reaching the edge of space.

Soon enough, the virus spreads.

And the citizens and denizens of Cycle #390,183,296 yelled their one last hoorah.

Before fading into obscurity and the whinnying of time.

* * *

In the Davey John's space locker,

In a dark space an epoch of light years away,

In its never-ending darkness,

There laid a giant who once slept.

And a communal of beings… aboard the world's largest starship fleet… both young and old, were forever transformed. For good.

The green did not discriminate. Did not care. Only changed.

Though, whether it be for better or worse…

Harbinger shall be _made_ to see.

* * *

In but a moment, the Wisps' eyes, once clamped in ignorance and error for nearly an eon… were lifted. They concluded the margin of error they laid on their two assailants plus one was…

Regrettable.


	6. Impressionable

Chief took back what he said about Physics. Actually, he took back all manners of insult he directed towards either of the sciences. Because he wanted nothing more than to hug and kiss and smother their lips in right here and now.

What happened to Thel _should never _have happened in any reality considered 'normal'. Even now while he still felt like he had been bludgeoned by an ale-addled Nordsman, he did not let the position he was in – a crouch – get the better of his logic. And don't even _attempt_ to slip the "it's beyond your comprehension" bullshit past him; he knew to tell between science fiction and what may as well have been high _fantasy_.

Well, if there was one consolidation to take from this: the gyro had stopped spinning. At least.

Though, he doesn't suppose whether the device's inventors would justify its appearance to look so daunting right afterward. Because he currently had no clue. Doesn't help that his best friend had been apparently kidnapped by the squid outside, even though her data chip was just right _there_ on the MJOLNIR.

Plot convenience at its finest.

He shakes his head. Ugh. Distractions. ONI would have whipped him good for that.

The soldier looks down to the task at hand, finally. And what a sight to behold he was…

50,000 volts of electricity had surged through the Sangheili.

Fifty fucking K. Well, what looked to be that amount of volts, leastways.

Through Thel.

Electrocuted him with similar disrespect to what roasted pigs were to bloodied sporks.

And yet, the Sangheili's chest – still torn apart with all kinds of ghastly wounds – still lifts. Talk about hard-to-kill.

Whatever it was, it still didn't change the fact that, for a few moments, Thel's silhouette had become a colourful combination of every synthwaver's wet dream.

Mauve and khaki electric bolts, fluttering absolutely fucking everywhere. And then there was this dome of electricity – looked like some sort of EMP blast – that had only spread what was inside or outside the room, via that 'conduit'. He wasn't sure whether he should call it a conduit anymore. Not when it made Thel emit green smoke—w-wha, whatever the cloud was that surrounded him.

Thel's negative only laid still on the floor; looked to be gasping for air. Yeah, John supposes it was fair. He reckoned he would have done the same after a 50,000 V electric _convulsion_.

Thinking nothing of his own self-preservation – Thel's potential compromise from a certain crustacean outside – John calls out. The Chief couldn't tell much from the green haze of smoke that had emitted in the room not long after Thel steeled his talons around the device's knobs – nor could he clearly tell concrete from the abstract. It all boiled down to not being able to interpret the situation clearly…

And that greatly grated on his nerves.

"Arbiter?" he calls out once more.

Didn't really know what he expected other than utter silence, sadly.

He edges himself towards the entrance ledge – the offending dome-like area which seemed more outside than in. Chief didn't need to look down to know that this translucent beam Thel had so graciously walked on was the only thing that prevented him from pursuing his passions in becoming Mexican Salsa. Of circuitry. Maybe it was like Cortana said: sometimes he had to take a leap of faith.

Perhaps, if ONI hadn't drilled it into his head otherwise, he would have been more _willing_. He lifts his legs just atop the ledge, tippy-tapping the unconvincing walkway just to make sure…

Before heading on over to what may as well be the world's two-time record holding punching bag. The smoke had barely left by the time he worked the courage to realise, that yes, darling, this transparent walkway really exists.

As he went about, he took some cursory glances around the place, and for the most part – it looked to be more of the same as he gathered outside. Just a dome with red-beaming rods running along the wall, all wires connecting to the centre of a conduit. Of sorts.

God, from the Gravemind to Installation 04-b – this, this was getting too much!

Upon what his suits reckoned to be half-a-meter, he kneels, first bringing up his suit's onboard medical HUD. Sure, the crude way it was built really showed in some features (or lack thereof), but Cortana seemed to make do with what had been given by the Arbiter – and by extension, the Sanghelios government – about all kinds of kinks about the Sangheili physique which she could exploit for the medical betterment of said species.

Their prejudice to any real medical treatment could ultimately result in Thel's downfall. How poetic. Then again, Thel actually consenting to medical aid meant that there was still hope for their feudal traditions, after all.

John supposes he was lucky that he hadn't shot Thel through the neck when he could. Guy can adapt to situations faster than he is at breathing in and out.

It was when his HUD had just analysed whatever was on John's visors did things really start to get abnormal. The fact that it blared red so suddenly did not help calm his nerves.

_\- ERROR – analysis of inorganic compounds unavailable –_

The Chief was pretty sure of himself that all Sangheili were made out of pure organic blood. Not in the least bit persuaded by their hard-on for 'purity'. But that's not what the data gathered from him… unless all they said had been a lie, which he doubted, to say the least. The Sangheili were too obsessed with honour and whatever not to bother with trivialities such as _lying_. Maybe he should put this one on the backburner for now and focus on more pressing things…

But what else could have made his suit come to a conclusion like…

That?

He solemnly shakes his head, his hands buckling over their knuckles in anticipation for what is to come.

After shooing the green smoke which had filched him of his vision, he soon notices that the Arbiter's predicament didn't only extend to his survivability…

A kind of green radiance set his charred skin alight, bumbling and buzzing around like circuitry, all throughout. It circled continuously – all around his form, and it was all kinds of grotesque and alien. Chief knew not to discriminate from appearances alone, but _come on_. Could you spare him this one hint of doubt?

John was in the middle from trying to prod Thel up – if he even was the same anymore, at least – to head-level…

Before the dome around them bellowed a sound with similar subtlety of a brick hitting you in the fucking head. It made him shut his suit's auditory receptors.

For the love of Jesus Sodding Christ, how many surprises did the heavens want to cram into this soup-can of tom-fuckery?!

_OPENING AUDIO FILE 12-B BY INPUTTED REQUEST OF DOCTOR RYKENI, FILE RECENTLY ALTERED BY USER **CORTANA** AT _**TIME UNABLE TO BE ASCERTAINED**. _PLAYING NOW._

In a flash, the tell-tale monotonous 'call-girl' voice faded from the apparent dome speakers' memories – and in its place… a tired, hoarse intonation. A tone that he had become well-acquainted with in his early years. A broken man.

And this message, it seemed, would be the last he spoke. He slowly latches his hands from the MJOLNIR's backside. John knew of final hoorahs all too well…

_If… if you are hearing this, then…_

_I thank you. Our whole race thanks you. The Galactic Collective thanks you. Whether you are from the next cycle or the… or even the light-damned quadrillionth. Just know you may have helped save us a place in the future. Won't be in the traditional sense… but when were things ever easy?_

_You must think I am sputtering nonsense… and why wouldn't you? Those Hardblood morphing and tearing apart each and every one of your own species into these thrice-damned blue-blooded abominations. But they are not. None of them are._

_We, the, uh, Wisperian government I mean… we had an… unexpected development. Every Hardblood you purge, every ship you bring down? Every one of them had a conscience. Well, a gestalt consciousness. Can't delve into the specifics of _how _we learnt of this, but our lab notes outside should explain it to you well enough. _

The soldier spares a glance at the door outside. So that's what the paper were…?

_And yes. That's the reason. Wouldn't have printed them in paper otherwise. In ink. I had to borrow Glok's, as in, physically. You don't wanna know what a Gebri Handra's nipples smell like. _

_Anyway, semantics. Just know we had a change in plan once we found a weakness in the Hardblood. Every one of them are… 'indoctrinated' in a sense, right? Follow the commands belonging to all Hardblood code, right? Appeared to be led by this 'Harbinger', correct? _

_The Galactic Collective found a way to reverse that completely. _

_It took many sun cycles. Many sacrifices on our part. And we did it. Finished what you may see to be the spiralling gyro outside. Pretty, isn't it? Its light would reach half the planet of Voe by my estimates. _

Ah, so it was a planet, then? Good thing. John would have shot himself in the head twice over otherwise.

_Don't tell anyone, but we worked off of what some past cycle managed to find instead. Sorry. I… I don't think it even works like that. Neither does E'kep and the rest. Just that it reverses the effects._

A reserved sigh.

_If only we had enough time for our VI to put in the finishing touches; see our sacrifices be worth it… _

_It's pretty foolproof software-wise. Boys at Coding had their work cut out for them. Made it so that no possible synthetic could ever hope to logically find it. The Hardblood won't be penetrating our system any time soon. I—_

In fair distance of the messenger, Chief could hear something… a repeated cacophony of pounding and wailing, beautiful and terrible, furious and barbaric all the same.

Chief knew what it likely was. Must be more of this 'Hardblood' he mentioned. Has to belong to the Squid-thing out there. Though, its minions sounded like it held more similarities to Flood victims than he'd like.

_Doesn't mean this complex is fool-proof from them, though. Sometimes numbers are all that it takes to overrun a position. They are already outside. _

_…Well, there are worst corners to be wedged in._

Pondering, now.

_So, you have Hardblood barging in, and not enough time. What do you do?_

Silence. After what Chief estimates to be 10 secs, the messenger went on.

_If you are a scavenger from the future… if there ever _was _a future, then you may have slightly, involuntarily, non-consensually, stumbled into a dome-shaped room which has a sort of green… beam, sitting vertically in the middle. Yeah, sorry. You can thank the Hurean Government for that piece of neuroscience. Dictating bastards._

_You... you kind of held your hands, paws, tendrils – whichever appendage… onto the knob, right? I can't even begin to wonder whether you are irreversibly scarred. Too late for apologies. _

_If you want the effects reversed, you won't find me. I would have died of wounds, and if not, these Wanderers. _

_All I can say is... is that the Hardblood systematically cleanse the galaxy of all organic life every 50,000 years, and that we may well have been a cycle that has since eons passed. Every Hardblood is composed of a single race harvested from each cycle, depending on their technological advancements._ _Neuroscience I implemented attracts weak-willed individuals, and makes them activate the device. This weapon... this conduit. It irreversibly changes every Hardblood fundamentally to who they were before they were indoctrinated. With your blood. DNA. And... it sort of gives them their conscience back._

_Yeah. The whole team was pretty proud on that front. Too bad it isn't yet finished._

_Speaking of the team, engineering__ \- my whole division? We agreed on a Purge. after this. I personally rigged the Cleanser in the facility to explode; vaporiser – pretty thorough stuff. It shouldn't effect inorganics, but the rest? Poof. Gone. Into dust._ _It cleans up after organics very well._

_And, uh… I don't know whether you are too pissed at me to care… but I… my, my wife and daughter's remains are outside the lab, just by the corridor. Hidden switch – but it should be pretty obvious if you managed to get in here in the first place. You won't find mine, for… for obvious reasons. But I dug a pyre outside. And the Hardblood don't care much for organic woes. So, if you could… burn their remains over the pyre, please? _

_I didn't get the…_

Something brash and gaudy discharged in the way of the messenger, sounded like it was at the right; some odd combination of gunfire and glass shattering.

_Sorry. I have to go now. Uh… Uhm… Yeah._

_Sorry._

And… that was the end of that.

The tape stopped all manner of personating, the last of its whispers carried off by the foul air circulation of this damned dome.

Chief was expectedly left kneeling there with more questions than answers.

XXXXX

One hand chauffeuring two loved ones' remains and dragging a circuitry-tattooed Thel 'Vadamee on the other, the Chief trudges onward, determined to fulfil the messenger's wishes.

What Thel wouldn't give to not end up in an embarrassing, unconscious position such as this. He would rather had John blasted him in the face the first time they reunited.

Well, Thel wasn't in much of a position to argue since he was still sleeping safe and soundly courtesy of John's extra gentleness – so _too bad_.

And he _still_ had no clue what the messenger was on about. If the guy was acting, he sure made a damn convincing look for himself. Then again, no sane person would go through the immense trouble of making whatever Hardblood-shit up for the sake of _tricking _the enemy, so he supposes it could be real for all he knew.

But what in all the nine planes of hell would be capable of pushing so many species back as the messenger claimed? Surely nothing could be more perilous and systematic to the processing organic life than the Flood, right?

Yeah, there wasn't much John could keep his mind occupied with while he pushed through this sarcophagus – and back the way he came. There was no way for there to be an alternative exit; his MJOLNIR radar had made him rather clear of that.

He couldn't bear to think of the history here, if it was as deserted as the messenger implied it came to be. These walls used to house the brightest of the highest, the bravest and the best – a communion of species even, working together to fight for a united cause! When humanity had first made contact the Covenant, many thought it would wind up in much of the same way.

Until they ordered humanity's purging, that is.

Chief just hoped… just hoped that his squadmates' deaths were not in vain. That they wouldn't fight the same, tired, _useless_ wars – over and over again. He may have been an impressionable lad from his ONI days, but hadn't let the 'glory' of battle cloud his vision. They were only missions, nothing more. He knew that all of his squadmates' deaths were… they weren't for any higher cause or some shit like that. It wouldn't be right to not show a new generation what it means to have peace.

They only died to feed oblivious, power-hungry mongrels. But that's what all war boils down to, right? Old, bitter, greedy people ordering the young to throw their lives at some fabricated cause, dedicate themselves to it.

Oh, he knew what UNSC marines did to their POWs when they thought Chief wasn't looking. Covenant Elites in captivity usually got the eye-for-an-eye treatment.

He fucking hated it. John fucking hated what _he _himself did in his early days.

He was no better than the very people trying to eradicate them.

What were soldiers, really? Little more than impressionable children. He would know. He was one of them. Is one still.

Every day, drilled into their little, gullible heads – _"by the time you are done, all those murdering bastards will taste the sharp end of your blade." _

Propaganda had worked for the majority of them. Spartans killed without a second thought. So how were they any better than the covvies?

Chief's time with the Arbiter changed that.

When it came down to it, fundamentally… everybody has good in them. Every Covenant marines' ideals were only twisted and meddled by Truth and his men. They all probably did good for each other, made their world a better place. They all probably had friends and family that cared for them.

They all probably were as impressionable by war as Chief was.

He never thought before of the lives behind everybody he killed. He never thought before how all of them genuinely thought they were doing the right thing. He never thought before that all the people he sent to void infinite probably had plans with their family after the fact. Some, children.

Some, parents.

Not until, Cortana, that is. Thel only cemented that train of thought.

He brings his head down.

Were it so easy.

Rounding up what his radar interpreted to be the final corner – the stairwell they both came in before in their escape – Chief sheds Thel off his hands, a pistol now well accustomed to his grip.

He swung left.

And…

Nothing. The corridor was as bare and empty as it was before.

There wasn't much in the way of danger at _any _corner he turned; checked every position where an ambush could happen or would have been ideal when taking on a SPARTAN of his size.

It turned out he was turning over stones over nothing. And that made it all the more perplexing. Wasn't a squid just trying to snuff both Thel and John a couple of hours ago—

_CREEAAAK!_

And with his damned luck, the stairwell door opened.

There stood… he wouldn't say an abomination… he knew that mocking people for their appearances was among the lowest lows. But would he say that thing would make the world's best Halloween costume? Absolutely.

Its skin was as black as night, humanoid in appearance, around 6 feet – as one would look to exhume intellect. An eerie, almost ancient green glow surging tendrils all about its body; had as much tidiness of what ferns were to an aging tree.

And then, as it reached the bottom of the stairwell, Chief's pistol still trained on its head and all... It honest to God _spoke_. Fuck, that was creepy.

"I know that I am an old man; lived way past my body clock," the black figure rasps, bringing two hands up for safe measure. "But I am not done living – not just yet."

But that didn't stir Chief away. Not in the least. "Give me one good reason I should even _begin_ to trust you right here and now."

"Uh… I would prefer it if you—"

"Not happening. I have surprisingly good trigger discipline."

"That's fine. Though, I do think my "reason" will be among the best you have heard."

"Oh?" Chief budges. "Do share."

A pause.

"Because I noticed you may have used our device inside."

* * *

**GUYS! GUESS WHAT! DON'T USE THE MOBILE APP TO POST YOUR CHAPTERS; IT'S GLITCHED! CHAPTER 1 ENDED UP DUPLICATED WITH THIS ONE! SO SO SORRY TO ALL NEW READERS!**


	7. Answers

Fine. This is fine.

Not even an hour after Thel's smouldered skin had become a mind-map of green circuitry which so happened to be luminous (he still can't get over the fact that Thel was somehow still _alive_), Chief had been near _cornered_:

To talking with an honest-to-God zombie.

A zombie! Massive, antenna-sprouting, four-eyed humanoid zombie with an insect carcass plus bug wings to boot.

What had he done to have it come to _this_?

"You… _you_ built this?" Chief works up to ask. He didn't expect a reply to come so quick.

The thing shrugs meekly, rolling its head to the side. Almost reminiscent. It traces its four 'optics' along the hallway walls. "Most of us did."

Chief only batted his eyes and stared.

The stairwell wind beat against their tired figures – dim spotlights that hedged the corridor, their only light source.

Echoes of wind up above batter against the walls.

Daggers cuff on the cold, metal floor.

And the iron sights of John's pistol still ate its tiny head whole. "I _still _need a response other than things I am almost certain I am taking out of context."

It nods, seemingly expecting it. "You might be surprised how much plight your people share with mine. You have never communicated with my kind before; not that we were in the mood to."

Its well-intentioned efforts at hinting of their previously-impendent harvest seemed to have flown over the soldier's head.

Higher than the heavens themselves.

"That's, that's the fifth time you repeated 'plight'—w-what plight are you exactly referring to? If it's the moving, all-consuming blob of red flesh – then yes – that matter has been settled."

"I don't remember Hardblood ever being of aqueous nature. I am _example_ of that."

"Example? You may look… look different, but at least you have the fortitude to talk first shoot later. Unless there's this new Flood form – which I highly doubt…" His handgun grip stiffens, raising. "It was always slightly liquidous. Infecting hosts – turn them into controlled zombies – ring any bells?"

"_Organic?_"

His eyebrow raises. It was as if they met under a trying circumstance of different-universe-syndrome. Hell, maybe they both were for all the sense that thing was making. "Uh… sure…?" Chief replies.

It shakes its head. "You and I may have different ideas of what ships are made of, then. Your suit seems to be made of similar material – vessels, I mean – and as far as I can recall – all Hardblood have metal, synthetic outward appearances…"

"Which begs the question, then."

The thing soon stands tautly. "Yes?"

"Hardblood. Some term that had gotten thrown about for a few hours now, and you don't look like in much of a position to hide secrets. Tell me what it is, and I might think twice about blowing your bare head clean off."

It had the audacity to sigh. "Never thought I would be threatened for my life in my twilight years, but there's a first for everything."

"You'd, too, never think that the autopsy would find a bullet buried in your skull in your twilight years. But there's a first for everything, right?" Chief raises his sights.

"There's no need for provocation—"

"_I _am only responding like how any normal person with a half a brain cell would respond in a situation like this. Complacency for firing from your ship with intent to kill may work differently at wherever you live, but not us. If you let me play twenty questions, then I might change my mind."

It sighs, though the thing's trembling hands betrayed itself. Vexation. Chief can tell it was as caught off-guard as he was. "Fine," it eventually breathes. "Let's."

Chief brings down his weapon, holstering it. Even if the thing attacked him now, it wouldn't be enough to match his wicked quick-draw; and even then, it seemed honest enough.

Soon as he stows the weapon away, the heated atmosphere wanes – enough so for the mysterious enigma to bring down its hands. As tensions quieten down – Thel still slumbering peacefully all incognito-like by the hallway corner wall to the right of him – Chief makes his play.

"Why?"

It tilts its head. "Pardon?"

"The attack you launched. From before. Any reason for your superiors to have made the call at all? Any reason for you to have compromised and taken my AI?"

"Well, you never let me finish my say. Then again, trespassing OMNI-class Wisperian property is technically provocation enough – but I suppose laws do recede after a million years well over… that doesn't matter now."

"Then spit it."

"If you must know, I'd have to start from the beginning."

"Then, by all means, do. I have all the time in the world—"

_Hint: he really didn't._

He was merely clinging to some non-existent hope that the green blast really did heal all his wounds. Cos he currently didn't look the part of 'malnourished and fresh-from-the-ice-blender' Sangheili.

…

Good enough for John. "So long as I understand."

It wasted no time. That hardly meant that it went on the following tangent knowing that Chief couldn't comprehend it in the slightest. "This mangled corpse borrowed from an adventuring Prothean is currently inhabited by one Loijvas. Me. The only vessel at the time I could choose, anyway. I would have chosen something slightly less... eh... whatever this is.

"I am male, was born and raised on a backwater colony the Wisperian Government couldn't be bothered of taking under its wing, was a wicked shot and played a part in constructing the building you see here.

"My year of birth was… 49942. That's it. That would make me 58 plus light-knows how long – and bear in mind that's still a number well sought after those days. Was a bit on the rowdy side for sure, but I came through to the Science Division. Eventually. You have no idea how few pre-requisitions there were for an entry-level occupation.

"So there I was, 6 months on the planet Voi too early. The building you stand under, the reason for the VI announcer's death threat earlier? It was a super-secret government facility, see. The foundations of this thing were only being laid down 9 years prior to Invasion, and even, it was our current government's pet project – was a schematic from a prior cyclic invasion, actually. People only really started panicking to complete it when the first of the Hardblood came. Everyone and their mothers scrambled for a weapon powerful enough to wipe them out.

"My first introduction to this particular division provided me with an answer as to why security was so laxed; tad bit dramatic if you ask me. Hardblood. Looked like thousands of 'em. Came from the sky. If you must know, our aerial defences were squashed like bugs and we were left defenceless."

"So that's who you operate under; the… Wisperians?"

Loijvas did not hesitate. "That's our species' namesake. I could save you the trouble by just telling you how we got to this, but I like to think you really _do_ have the time."

God, he felt like such an arsehole for agreeing.

"Alright then, short version: that ship with the six appendages you saw just outside?

"That's Hardblood. You should have seen their kind before, Nazara – Sovereign, whatever they were called – footage of the ship was broadcasted everywhere on the Extranet – a tethered platform we had planted the foundations of. Interesting to see that a few organisations had managed to elude even the all-seeing Hardblood, but that's a story for another time.

"Nazara tried so hard to open the Citadel arms. Was among the first Hardblood, you see – didn't want to embarrass our now former leader Harbinger. Guess we should be thankful they didn't."

If Keyes was here, he would have spat his morning coffee. "That… So you are…"

"Yes."

"Look, I may have got myself lost in the narrative, but it seems to me that you are admitting to having _allied_ with this 'Hardblood.'"

"…That I did."

…

What?

John soon responded like how a UNSC marine would have at any given time. Minus the bit where he subsequently whips out his pistol, of course. Chief wasn't that basic. Though, he does feel in the mood to throw some darts. "Then give me one good reason why I _shouldn't_ have pulled the trigger of my gun."

"Because you have let us taste **_hope_** for the first time in a million years."

…

Oh, for fu—

Seeing the soldier's bewilderedness from body expressions alone, Loijvas brings up a loose arm to rub his bare, blue-blooded neck, soon realising that he needed to re-evaluate. "Er… wrong choice of words. Got excited. Let me explain. Again.

"What do you call our kind? Just a sniff; about the ship outside."

"As of now, it's 'squid', but you haven't allowe—" He was going to go over about how this was the first time he has ever seen such a macabre ship before being interrupted by the very same – but that's okay. It didn't need context, anyway. This entire conversation didn't. The Gravemind would be rolling in its grave.

"Alright. 'Squi-weed.' I can work with that.

"You witness, visionary sensors wide, these squi-weeds, as you call them, descending from the heavens and bringing with them destruction the likes of which no man has ever witnessed before. Ancient banes that come from the fringes of the galaxy… and out of the corner of your eye, blue spikes easily three floors tall sprout from the earth – and upon them – your brethren, maimed and razed beyond recognition."

"Wai—"

"Turned into things you weren't sure constituted the same basic rights all living things should possess. You would notice that my body and theirs share the same colour composition. That's… also due to the Hardblood, but that hardly matters now. All that matters is that you may have noticed that I am capable of speech while they weren't."

"I have a qu—"

"Thing is, they all could talk if they wanted. They just weren't in the right mindset; rather, it wasn't even theirs. See where I am getting at? The Wisps – and by extension I, we never looked like this… bestial form. Before all of this happened, we were only scientists working in a top-secret facility. When our position was compromised by the Hardblood, they sent in a heavily genetically-altered race to capture us. We were only sent in for the Processing; a factory line which turned good people into things no living person would ever think was moral. The worst part was that we expected the change, but it's one thing to write about it from a detached perspective and actively experiencing your impending demise via vacuum tube. Yes, our theories proved correct: every Hardblood is comprised of a collective of individuals combined to make a gestalt conscience. A slave-bound one, for sure – but at least we get to keep our identity. And that we did – only manipulated. I am not sure how the whole thing worked myself, so I will break it down as best I can."

"Excu—"

"Seeing as I and a few others were part of the Science division, they… I don't how else to describe the sensation other than it 'paralysed'. Turned that the Hardblood did. After involuntary collection, they take you well-beyond the Omega-4 mass relay – near this giant meteor, and somehow got transported to the centre of our galaxy. The next thing you notice as you wake up in some dainty-ass pod… your body, up to your chest, turning into black fluid. Needless to say, panic was futile – and that was that. My first life. Then the next thing you know you are converted to have the gestalt thoughts of millions of others and somehow feel utterly compelled to think that it was the right thing to commit genocide of other species because of some pre-determined disposition that a synthetic versus organic war _may _happen. So—"

Then came from the heavens a streak of lightning shriller than even the Ring's obliteration itself. "STOP!"

And as if by some command from the voice of God Himself, Loijvas does. The zombie couldn't see through Chief's visors, but he knew they boasted fountains of fuming magma in of themselves.

"You have _no conception _of how long I stood here without context of _anything _besides non-contextually explained events you very well could have been pulled from the bullshit tree!"

"Not even the _squi_-_weeds_?"

"No! I don't know what's a mass relay, what squi-weeds or Hard-whatevershit are, why they came from the 'heavens', what Processing even is. What is Omega-4? What's so significant about this 'cycle'? What even IS a CITADEL?"

"You don't know the station in the Widow—"

He throws his hands up in frustration. "NO! And if you don't hand back the AI who I am very sure will explain the situation better than you ever could, I am afraid negotiations are going to be cut short."

Loijvas was in the middle of bringing his pointing finger upwards in protest, but it laid there in the cold air instead, unmoving…

Before he eventually withdrew. "We find that…" His shoulders slunk down faster than the Dawn was at cutting itself in half. "Agreeable."

Chief didn't know whether it was pure coincidence that a cool morning's breeze from the surface just so happened to beat against his armour right after, but he held no opposition to it. Within a moment's notice, the familiar sing-song of Cortana's data chip booting up burst to life.

She was back.

John mutes his external speakers – it would be but a moment, he assured the apparent 'Hardblood' in front of him. If Loijvas had a problem with it, John would point out that the insect had brought great offence to his culture.

"Cortana?" asserts the petty Chief. "Cortana, do you copy?"

The second he finishes his prompt for help, his visor switches... to a portrait mode screen-type, it looked like? And displayed squarely in the screen, there she was. Her beautiful, veiled face.

She may now have born the same green circuitry as Thel's smoking skin, but the relief Chief felt at seeing his friend back where she belonged trumped all manner of critical lenses entirely. Would it be fraternisation if it was outside UNSC jurisdiction?

The AI wasn't in much of a 'mental' state to respond like she usually does, but she complied, regardless. "Y-yes. Roger."

He couldn't count on a million ballistic missiles how relieved he felt to hear that. But that still hadn't gotten to the crux of the problem. "But Cortana… where did they take you? Did they…"

"Yeah. They went through the whole process of wisping me off my own data chip – right under my nose too. I thought it was junk data that could be discarded, but… it goes to show just how much I really know. Soon enough, I led you all here, in this building, under false pretences. John, they did… many things. But hurt was not one of them. They weren't trying to kill me, Lord no. But they were trying to get me to act under more... nefarious reasons.

"Chief… I don't know how to say this, but we are standing on completely new ground. I asked as many questions, as they did likewise. Whatever disastrous event that happened for an entire species to have come to the conclusion that the Hardblood's construction was perfectly fine, I couldn't tell; but that hardly matters now.

"These ships had prospective… experience in their lifespans, that much was obvious: in genocide. Closest comparison I could make would be the Flood, only with synthetics and on a larger scale. In short, they refer to themselves as the Reapers, though the name shifted around in past Harvestings. Appropriate. Well, this synthetic race believed that culling every advanced, space-faring species would genuinely save the universe from caving in on itself. Obviously, that assessment, you and I can agree, is very wrong.

"The one thing that matters above all of that, however… is just _where_ we are.

"We are nowhere _near _UNSC or Covenant space. I made sure of it, scanned it all. The star maps they gave said as much. I checked, I agonised over them. But their coordinates seemed real. No forgeries or strings attached. We are in the same... galaxy. The Milky Way.

"I like to think I was engaged in civilised discussion, civilised as you can get – but I read through the lines 5 seconds after we started. They were trying to take control of me. Showed in the code. Obviously, I fought back. Successfully. And after that, they resorted to persuasion. They were batshit crazy.

"But the conversation did not transgress into barbarity. There was an… interference would be the word. Not in the way you'd think, though. Wasn't a skirmish, wasn't some assault upon the Reaper Fleet."

He was going to go an internal rant about how he was going to be justified in caving Loi's skull in, but now he was as confused as before. "What do you mean?"

"You know how AI units were merely programmed to exhibit… human emotion, yes? All expressions are encoded in my matrix, and I convert logic I observe into a tone of voice natural enough to pass for an actual human.

"Yet, I still saw from a cold, calculating perspective. Obviously, I cared, but only ever for your physical and mental wellbeing. All I ever did was follow code some shmo typed down on a keyboard – and ever since, I sort of tailored myself appeal best to a lonely Spartan."

He mentally staggers two steps back. Thank God for opaque, one-way visors. "Cortana. That _hurt_."

"I'd rather tell the truth than lie to my best friend – and I, I feel like shit. I am so, so sorry, John. You should have known _sooner_. But whatever happened up there in the… Leviathan Collective – they are called Reapers, now… It changed everything for me completely. For them too, the, uh, the 'Hardblood'."

"How so?" he asks, slowly beginning to understand what the past eight hours was all about.

"I only memorised the instructions on what to feel at any given timeframe; not how to truly. And all the while, I never understood exactly _why_ I feel. Soon as that green wave of light washed over my avatar… I…

"I understood what it means to be… yeah, I am not even going to finish that." "It's probably for the best." "_Agreed_."

"So…" Cortana continues telling John; hesitance plaguing her conscience all the while. If this what being alive was like, she wondered why no one had thrown themselves off a cliffside because that's how _sad _everything is. "Yes, I understand emotions now, however unlikely the possibility. Anger, sadness. Because I... I genuinely _feel_ them, deep down in my gut. It is active participation. I never knew such sensations could exist; they are just… they feel _awful_. And unless I was souped up with the all-allusive brand-new Forerunner tech, I doubt that such a feat should have been possible.

"And to the best of my knowledge, the blast originated from… here. This very building. I actually have been meaning to tell you this when I first came – but then this damned blast gave me feelings and I, HATE, feelings! The slightest hint of it and my logic matrixes pre-emptively shoot themselves in the _head_.

"So I have to ask one of you… who was the one that—"

Chief's finger was swiftly pointed at Thel. "He started it."

Cortana snorts in derision; to keep the balance, of course. "Evidently. I—"

And then Chief turned his helmet to the Sangheili in his… eh… excitement. The next thing he heard from Cortana was no less terrifying than the screams of a Banshee. "John, honey, when you take a good look at my avatar, and when you look again at the zombie standing patiently for us in the hallway, did it ever once occur to you that maybe, _just maybe_, Thel has a skin colour which mirrors ours, and said person probably had something to do with… eh, our organic-ness?"

At that, John simply turns that **_damned, blighted_** brain of his downwards. "…Perhaps."

"John you..."

Then, inexplicably per usual, halts all manner of silliness entirely. John knew that if there ever was a time to shut up, this was it.

Cortana was thinking. Out loud, as she usually preferred.

"So, if an organic was involved, and we were changed to be more like said organism, then…"

It was at that moment that the puzzle pieces came running down to meet and greet each other for her. It could only mean one thing that makes sense to her but doesn't make any jumbo to the Chief: a lightbulb moment.

"So, we may as well had been, changed down to the molecular level - synthetics still intact but with the added organic to the side… organic and synthetic components both combining and making up for each other's faults… like a, uh… urgh…

"Like a synthesis…

"Using Thel's genetic _make-up_."

…

John, for what feels like the first time in ages, scowls. "Wh—what?"

* * *

**For those needing context to what _synthesis _is: watch the Synthesis ending of Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut on Youtube. All we make sense then!**


	8. Idiosyncrasy

After an admittingly rather confronting bout of dialog – and dare the three of them say it: petty exchange of insults – the three of them gradually agree to simmer down and smooth things over before things got too… er, convoluted.

For Chief's, leastways.

Because he is such a hapless _toddler_.

And through some miracle on Cortana's part, both of them were convinced to take matters _outside_. That way, Chief would be more in his element. Needless to say, said soldier wasn't all too stoked about directly facing into the maw of a potential enemy – but he was quickly assured that Loi would have to go down with him for that particular fruit to bear.

So that was the end of that. The violence, the confusion, the close calls. They – as in, Chief and Loijvas only – agreed to settle things on a convenient elevated walkway Cortana saw before they trespassed this piece of illegal Wisperian property. Thankfully, Loi was reasonable enough to let the long-dead law slide.

It wasn't as if it would be reasonable for an entire amalgamation of species to nail the coffin on a new species which so happened to break rules which they didn't even know existed, right?

Neither of them said a word as they made their way out of the weapon. Entering the main floor, the green light still flickers in the ancient gloom which had encased them all. All this effort, all this sacrifice to make this project happen – only for it to be gone by the 30th minute? All things considered, the zombie scientist was taking that fact rather well.

Though, that doesn't mean he didn't take some cursory glances to admire the organic product of the Wisperian Conduit. Thel; again being hauled by a surprising lukewarm Chief. There was a reason why he was labelled the penultimate Spartan. He _lifts_.

But Loi could sense that was only a matter of time before that Sangheili stirs up a cockatoo for both of them. He may sooner have to write a 'get-well' card if he didn't want his pious ass to get spanked.

As for Chief, while it may be tough to believe that this conduit held as much power as almost half of the Covenant Fleet's power – he has faced odder before.

So long was John cast in the shadow of darkness that his eyes were blinded by the evening sun. As the two figures set out, what was once merely acknowledged for geographical advantage could now be fully valued. The courtyard of the building was the garden architect's equivalent of a Holy Grail. Too bad the Wisps didn't have a Holy Hand grenade to beat Reaper ground forces along with it…

Trees laid out the yard in equal distances to and from each other – decorated stones of all shapes and sizes encircled them like they partook in a ritual; the artificial grass that came under could pass for the real thing. The path leading to the entrance had a laneway veranda draped over the top and the recreational services like water fountains and tables were all well and good too – no benches, Chief noted. Unless the Wisps were a levitating people he couldn't understand why they didn't go all the way. Above the garden, a sun simmering like a pat of softened butter on a clear day.

If this facility had been an apartment complex, Chief reckoned he could live out the rest of his days here. But duty seems to follow no matter the good deeds he has done, and he has no choice but to comply.

Sad thing is… Chief may be the last one to appreciate it all. How… wasteful.

Before they settled and sorted things out like the grown-ups they were meant to embody, Cortana offered to look after Thel (still _sleeping soundly by the veranda railing, but of course_) for the time being – having had a heart-to-heart with both opposing UNSC and non-UNSC-and-not-of-the-same-universe parties already.

All that was, really, was a toss-up between "be reasonable with each other" and "get your fucking shit together!" Both statements were equally valid.

Yes, they were more or less backed into an exposition-discussion for the convenience of yours truly. What Reapers are, Cortana's universe displacement theory; that sort of thing. So that he could catch up and act accordingly, of course.

The whole plan was first heading outside the mystery building, both clap-cheeks firmly planting on the sidewalk pavement – directly facing the front side of the mother-of-all intimidation incarnate: a 1.75-kilometre _beast _of a Hardblood; or rather, 'Reaper' vessel. And they do eventually follow through, minus the whining and such and such.

Did it ever occur to Cortana that Chief could be held hostage by this thing – like two school children sitting next to each other on the Buddy Bench vigorously rolling their ankles in boredom while one plotted to tear out the other one's spleen.

Awesome.

…

…Like that train of thought was normal in any way shape or form.

Chief curls his hands on the sidewalk edge. He was starting to think Cortana had switched allegiances too, only this time, she chose the Intellectuals-Only club. Sierra-117 knew the AI had an air of superiority from the moment she had first integrated with his MLOLNIR, but the punctuating it on his smooth brain further bit was completely uncalled for. It hurt even more because she was so _justified_.

And once they settled down, on began the clarifying things he wasn't sure about part of the mission.

It took some really large pill swallowing, but Chief eventually comes to terms with their situation: what seemed like a mediocre B-SciFy flick had decided to get up on its ass and become reality.

Being that they sat barely 50 centimetres from each other, he shifts his head towards the former Reaper… Collector, what's-it-called – to clarify on some floating thought clouds which nagged at him to no end.

"So, we booted up the prototype slip-space generator on the Dawn, only to end up in another reality?" John starts.

"More or… less." It seems like this Loijvas didn't believe it himself: but the data logs Cortana gave him just before they went out proved otherwise. "To clarify, it was more like transporting to a different dimension. Seems like it to me if the ship's data logs were correct; _plus_ your AI. Don't look to me for an explanation for _that_ can of worms."

"Being that coordinates were tamped and slightly off trajectory, we flew head first into a garden planet known to your kind as Voi. And this is where your species made its last stand against the Reapers?"

Loijvas rolls his left shoulder. "Mm-hmm."

"So following the crash, Thel was injured badly, and we had no medical aid. So we sought _help_. Bit of scouting later we happen to find a Wisperian skyscraper set up in the middle of nowhere, and next to it was a Reaper ship: a synthetic lifeform made using the organic components and consciousness of around a million people of the same species – whose only job every 50,000 years would be to come to life to commit galactic-wide genocide."

"Well, _now_ we are called the 'Reapers'. 'Leviathan's Offspring' doesn't have the same intimidation factor. _I _personally preferred it when a particular cycle called us 'Oblivion itself'."

"Next, we infiltrate and gain access to the Reaper equivalent of a Little Boy, originally made by the Wisps – a long-extinct species which fought valiantly yet still failed to quell these Reapers.

"And little did Thel and I know, the entrance to the device was rigged by the Reapers themselves. You.

"Even though the central intelligence – Harbinger – failed to find evidence which would indicate the device to prove the contrary, they decided it was better safe than sorry. Anything the Reapers did to the building, they couldn't scratch a dent. So you – well, a by-product of you – were left to guard it – because you knew the building inside and out."

"Yup. And they say the past doesn't define who you are!"

Rolling her eyes, Cortana continues to run her analysis on Thel's slumbering frame. Many a RAM were sacrificed in her quest for the comprehension of organic-synthetic bodies; a necessary sacrifice, for sure. At least now she had something in the universe she could attach her name to.

Meanwhile, Chief was having a stab at whether his SPARTAN memory holds. Pretty good, Loi concludes. "So, we enter the picture – and we took advantage of your one weakness. Everything else afterwards is self-explanatory, but, er," he points a finger at Thel, "_he_ was lured into activating one of your devices as it was primed to launch not long after the whole building initiated a Purge."

"Uh huh," Loijvas confirms.

"Finally, Thel's involvement changed all of you for good, and that was that. Although you are still one mind with the rest of your people in the Reaper ship, you all have the ability to still split and ponder individually whenever leisure permits it," he finishes. "Now we are here, sitting by the curb, admiring… a part of _you_. Technically speaking. The Reaper ship."

"Wouldn't be my idea to call a four-clawed-carapace ship something to be admired, but yes. The Reapers and all the harvested races that make up the fleet gained their consciences back by combining organic DNA and our synthetic make-up. A hybrid.

"As we speak, some of the more knowing Reaper vessels have taken to dishing out revenge on the First Reapers. Harbinger and his compatriots… like that would solve anything. And it was all thanks to… Thel'Vadamee. Hope I didn't butcher it." A sudden pause. Could the ensuing gurgle which came the four-eyed zombie be even _considered_ a giggle? "Well, thanks more or less."

Like a discordant family driving through the arid countryside, the conversation halts in its tracks – for the sixth time. This time it was John being genuinely curious of Loi's indifference to it all.

"So you are really going to take the universe-jumping speck of our problem and run with it, huh?"

"Your AI has already labelled it plainly for all of us to analyse. Hard to argue against what was caught on video."

"And if it was forged?"

"We would have noticed by the first frame."

Chief stares off into space – or seemed to from Loi's perspective. He was only admiring how his race managed to invent a device capable of rewriting the code of all of that Reaper _mass_. As if the Wisperians couldn't be any more badass. Anybody who told him otherwise would have been met an aura of scepticism as strong as an atheist's.

Actually, speaking of…

John nudges his form closer to Loi. To keep the tirade of co-operation, of course. "I haven't properly greeted… I mean, well. Your race in general. Cortana must have told your kind humanity is a bit apprehensive when it comes to these things; that bit seeped into my mind."

"She did." Loi would have grinned if he had a mouth. "Well, not pointing that gun at my face would have helped. Justified, that's for sure – but it did give me a bit of a fright! I suppose I am lucky; anyone else and my head would have been spread over thirty acres of land.

"Anyway, I suppose I should take this opportunity to apologise about the way I behaved earlier."

Chief crosses his arms. "What do you mean?"

"I am not normally this serious about these things." The zombie brings his head down as if there was anything to be ashamed about. "So, sorry in parenthesis, then."

Now John was plain confused. Had Wisps no pride? "What you did was a textbook example of what not to do when you're in a gun-lodged-between-your-eyes scenario."

"_This_, is informal?" Loijvas exclaims, his back suddenly lodged straight. "Light, I would hate to converse with this cycle's species."

"What, you never had formal events?"

"Of course the Wisperians have. But go any _more _formal than we already did and our field doctors would diagnose you with 'Tight-Lipped-Cunt' syndrome."

"I raise to you ONI legal meetings, then."

Loijvas asks him to clarify just what ONI was. As politely as he could for an old Wisp like him, though. Chief was sure that Thel would have labelled him a heretic had he been awake.

From the very first mention of "independent reconnaissance", Chief could tell that the Wisp hated ONI. To the latter, it was simply a boiling pot waiting to explode under their asses.

Chief agreed.

After a healthy minute of bashing ONI, the two decide to call their apparent 'negotiations' quits. It seemed that in tearing each other to bits and pieces, they made each other some life-long friends. Funny how Cortana's prophecy worked like that.

But be that as it may, that doesn't really erase the fact that Chief and co. really didn't have any way back home – as of now, anyway. They were from a parallel universe, after all.

So, the only questioned that remained for both of them really boiled down to this:

"What now?"

* * *

"If it is any consolation, Tali, this one sympathises with your predicament. It is not easy to lose a captain you have come to respect… most of all even call a friend. Most travelling crew won't ever get to experience that level of conviction. Not even a modicum."

Two months. Two months had passed since Shepard had rudely interrupted Sovereign from sending an open invitation to the rest of the Reaper Fleet to enact their half-centamillenium organic harvest. While some part of the Citadel was laid to waste – the Keepers and other volunteers made do with the mess they could clean up.

They were never really paid attention to, however. All eyes human and alien alike fell on the Alliance commander in blue.

The Normandy Crew was largely hailed as heroes – bundles of flowers thrown at your feet sort of affair.

Celebrations lasted a week before everyone else went about their daily lives. As for the team itself? Some were transferred to different tours, some took on some much-needed shore leave, a few even quit military life all together.

While the media was busy doing what the media does best: blowing things out of ridiculous proportions – the valiant C-Sec get-the-job-done Turian with a killer attitude and the Asari doctor which had an intelligence not matching the size of her skull, for example; and that was off the top of her head.

Tali, on the other hand, was just surprised she even got a mention at all. A 15-minute one at that! Her life leading up to that point and everything! The best she had hoped for was at least a Fleet and Flottila 8x03 feature. Utika had better apologised to Cardinus in the next serial – that greedy, shitfaced bosh'tet!

…

Anyways,

Contrary to what the media depicted how prestigious their lives were after the fact, the core team had taken to responding differently. A 180-degree turn – and that was being generous.

The majority was largely directionless. Urdnot Wrex – that piece of work at least had something good going for him – what with returning to and restoring Tuchanka to its former glory and all. Ashley, Joker and the rest of the Alliance personnel had the Systems Alliance to answer to.

The rest? No way. Garrus wasn't so sure on returning to C-Sec after all the difference he actually made during this operation; Liara was having second doubts of truly embracing archaeology seeing the havoc she could unleash if she had activated _another _Reaper mailbox instead. As for Tali, she decided to remain on the Citadel for a sting: carefully analysing and taking apart the Geth tech she could send to the Flotilla – complete her pilgrimage as she promised Shepard.

Needless to say, prospective changed when Shepard was declared KIA while patrolling the Terminus Systems. Garrus and Liara fell off the grid, though not before leaving behind a trail of tears in their wake, as Tali did herself. Wrex made good on his initial objective, swearing upon his life to fulfil Shepard's wishes on uniting the Krogans once more – and the Alliance personnel were transferred to different ops instead.

But the Ancestors haven't lifted so much as a finger so as to save her captain from succumbing to the airless vacuum of space.

She supposes it was a price all living things paid when the universe was kind enough to let a hero like Shepard intervene at the right place and at the right time.

From where Tali sat, she casts her sights downwards, three fingers jostling each other as her elbows gravelled her thighs. Damn it.

Through her haze of thoughts came the belated follow-ups of the civilian ship's pilot. Her throbbing head comes up, front facing directly at the ship's cockpit. The Hanar lays its body upon the all-consuming, baby-skin fabric of the pilot chair.

"Urgh, sorry… this one is no good with apologies," it had said.

Weird that a Hanar like Cackles in the Face of Adversity was willing to spend its working life ferrying people to far-off places in the galaxy, but she wasn't complaining. It was all she could afford to get to the Migrant Fleet. You'd think after all the trouble Shepard went through to highlight in bold that unification between all governments was necessary for life as they know it, the Council would be lining pockets for her.

But she'd figured they would rather save face from their critics than spare pocket change for a poor little suit rat.

She looks at the Hanar square on its face. "Well, Cack, thanks for... trying anyway. Can't say the same for most others." Tali'Zorah nar Rayya tugs at the loose fabrics of her suit. Like hair strands nodding drowsily in the ocean breeze. "At times, I even came to call the Normandy my home. Well, a dysfunctional one – but it was _a _home regardless. After Alenko died… it was never really the same. If Ashley won't let you recite Sylvia Path to her, you know something has gone wrong somewhere."

"Hmmph. Family. Like… the Rayya? The Alerai?"

She stares daggers at Cack. "I am going to pretend I never heard that."

"When you are as tied to space as this one is, you are bound to make friends in the most unlikely of places. Not too different with your operation with Commander Shepard, really. When we land, tell the inhabitants of the Qwib-Qwib that this one said hi."

Under the anonymity of her purple mask, she smiles coyly. "Come in and tell Koris yourself, you coward."

The Hanar crosses its front tentacles. "The process of detoxing its armour would be of great annoyance."

"And I thought Hanar were the most patient of them all."

"Be adopted by Australian spacers and you'll know where the attitude stems from."

"Isn't that the place where everything wants to kill you?"

"Gross exaggeration, really," Cack replies, throwing its head to the side. "It is instead home to conservative bogans and politicians with charisma as deep as a pool."

This time Tali doesn't have the effort to mask her laughing. "I see why your parents raised you in space."

"This one has to hand it to them. They have raised it right—"

_-BEEP-_

And with that, Cack immediately turned his attention to his ship's radar. He had programmed in that sound specifically to tell him when things are about to go south. This particular intonation only ever signalled when they were dealing with things that…

He dared not finish that train of thought.

Never did his ship ever emanate that sound before – he had been wise in his selection of star map routes. Were pirates getting smarter in their…

The whisper that came after was barely enough for even the most sensory-privileged of individuals to hear. "Oh no."

Tali soon departs in search of a better perspective of the situation – leaving her belongings behind. "Cack? What's happening?"

"This… this shouldn't happen. Not even the Destiny Ascension could match…"

"It's… it's a Cerberus craft, isn't it? Always looking to one-up the rest of us. I have half a mind to think that they are involved in Shepard's death."

The bleep on Cack's radar was looming ever closer.

"No, Tali. This one is very, very sure that Cerberus would not have the resources to copy… this! I… This one thinks you are well-acquainted with this type of ship already."

Tali squinted her eyes at Cack's radar. "What do you—"

_A blinding glint flashing just by the corner of her eye._

Her head swings upwards in kind, out the glass panes of the pilot's cabin…

Within the depths of empty space, an object only illuminated by the light of this system's solar system could be made out. No other ship was in the vicinity – nor rock, nor station. They were alone.

Nothing else needed to be said when one of its tentacles pointed towards it. And in but a second's notice, Tali's heart drops.

All of Shepard's hard work – all the sacrifices he made to turn things in this galaxy around...

It all may come undone. The silhouette was tell-tale; unmistakeable from the real thing.

"**Reaper**."

Tali waggles the Hanar's torso about, much to the surprise his delirium-hazed stupor. Her next words were orders he heeded unconditionally.

"Turn back, you idiot! TURN BACK!"

* * *

**So is this a weekly thing? I guess it is. No promises.**

**Anyway – yes, Tali will integrate into Thel and John's crazy adventure to save the day. Hope this chapter ties up plot points and hypes you up for the next instalment!**

**(btw: reviews are my lifeblood – more so than followers… comments of your thoughts on the story would be greatly appreciated.)**


	9. Oblivion

_"I-I am sorry, uncle. I am so sorry."_

_"But you meant it, didn't you? You planned it from the start."_

_"No, uncle, I didn't mean it. I really didn't. It was a mistake. I am so so sorry I got you hurt, I really am. I will do everything you say, just please..."_

_"You bring shame upon the Vadam name, and you expect me to treat you with anything more than one would think an animal?. I should have known my sister was so incompetent to raise inferior blood... One wonders to ponder why she hadn't been sacrificed before."_

_"P-Please don't hit me; it, it hurts, uncle."_

_"And I won't. Your siblings shall do the deed instead, pay them with what they are due like the burden you are."_

_"No! NO! Please please please don't... it hurts, it hurts..."_

_"Runt like you doesn't deserve the holy air in which you breathe. You aren't even worthy to serve the Prophet's first wave, much less bear our house..."_

_"I, I won't do it again, just please, plea-AH-!"_

_"FACE ME WHEN I SPEAK AND KNOW THIS WELL AND GOOD, WHELP:_

_"When you face the jaws of oblivion, damn its name as you are damning mine NOW!_

_"When you stare into the eyes of those who seek to push you down when you know you committed no crime, spit on their feet and curse the very ground they walk!_

_"And when you see those that dare to oppose your loved ones, your mother, your father - do not hesitate to bring down a world of pain upon those vermin._

_"Let this be my lesson to you, and you best listen well, Thel'Vadamee._

_"Do NOT submit to those who wish you harm. _

_"Do not cower under their drudged mechanisms. _

_"Do not falter in our codes of ethics and honour._

_"Most important of all: do NOT live a life mired in regret. _

_"Mourn the present tragedy, but do not have it doubt what would be by now a wiser man._

_"Your ma and pa were the best of all of us, and they died much like how the rest of us aspire to. _

_"Do not let their memory go to waste, young one."_

* * *

It was ironic fate that Thel went about the rest of his life without so much as a bat of the eye to what his uncle advised. All those years ago, in his youth; he ticked every box of what is required of a young Covenant.

But he faltered in what really mattered most.

To accept himself. To accept his past.

To learn from it and grow.

To move on. And he didn't. In fact, he had done everything in his power to prove the contrary.

Now... however. It was faith's cruellest test.

Can a broken, grieving man forgive himself?

* * *

**PRESENT DAY:**

The Arbiter was well-accustomed to electricity coursing through every fibre of his being. In his youth, he dabbled with the thought at times: helpless to fend against the tides of his muscles jerking with the apathy of a fish bouncing on land and the breathing of smoked meat.

He had made it a point to train extra hard the first time he attended his first Heretic Culling with his caretakers. It would be safe to assume that the proceedings that had commenced more than made an impression on him.

Nowadays, the sensation had taken to meeting with him face-to-face every odd month. He would have not given a single glance to the jaws of oblivion, back then. It would only be greeted with the left side of his cheek, and two closed eyelids to accompany a slack jaw. That was when he thought that death and life didn't work in parallel with one another, how they make two parts of the same coin. Now he knew better. From the moment he had accepted the truth about Truth and his lackeys, his perspective changed. No longer would those thoughts be thrown out of balance, to be shunned by one another. He instead took to combining them. And in this, he thought, he found the answer for himself. There was no use in dwelling what comes after; that of the present mattered most among all. And it is what should be valued most.

Humans... they don't think of death too often. Hell, they may as well had pissing contests with him right then and there. It was Covenant mentality Lite-edition.

Back on the _Dawn_, Cortana remarked that the women of her race would absolutely go _crazy_ for scarred, muscular men - as if it was some sort of show-boating worthy of one's attention. Though Thel was sure it was in jest, it did get him thinking. The Sangheili never really well-versed on the amorous side of things, having dedicated almost all his life to the art of combat - but he was pretty sure wrinkled skin that fell off every week or so wasn't that desired of a trait.

That's _his _opinion, though; for all he knew Cortana threw in the towel of sanity with the rest of the humans. I mean, resisting the Will of the Prophets? Come _on_.

...

Where _was_ that blasted demon, anyway? He took cursory glances around the place where he... resided. Black. Pure black; not really anything substantially useful.

And before you go asking, he knew of the demon's true identity, alright; he had to swear upon his life to not reveal it to anyone else and everything. To say he was shocked that Cortana had told him that the demon wasn't of a client warrior species was an understatement. Truth be told, he first thought that Cortana only intended to wound his pride. He supposes technology would get anyone anywhere nowadays - gene-modding, gene therapy, experimental surgery. An AI telling him information which would probably be kept under lock and key fifty times over must have meant he was already teetering close to oblivion.

The fact that he was mauled upon the _Dawn_'s impact atop a mystery planet practically sealed his fate. Luck found him to be pleasureable company, he supposed.

But speaking of hunger...

Shouldn't he be bleeding on the floor and starved out of his mind by about now? Yeah, about that! Where in Prophets' name is he? Last he checked before he slipped into this void of never-ending he was being involuntarily possessed and cooked alive by two ends of a-

* * *

It felt as if someone had planted a dynamite bomb on both his eyelids and detonated it. They may as well have fallen to the shadow realm.

_"G-GUH!"_

He clawed at his throat as if the air entering his lungs actually meant well. Cold, abundant sweat streams from the neck down; gleamed his skin and pictured it in a better light he considered to be heretical. Some eternal bodily fire still ate at his mutilated skin, but it was less pronounced this time. More muted. Though it indeed had been a rude awakening and by the gods he would rather fall back asleep once more, habits from his training days still came to him as naturally as breathing was. It is times like these when situational analysis was the difference between life and death.

So he laid upon a metal table that eerily resemble those found in morgues; that, he could easily tell. Tubes of liquid which extended to the ceiling above quenched his veins' thirst, endings tucked underneath each layer of his skin. All the significant parts that were signalled had been wrapped with standard-issue Medi-Wraps. His private bits were neatly veiled and tucked away underneath a white garment, as if his healers had anything to be ashamed of. They must have known Thel was quite particular about his willingness to expose his body like that. Not after what that brute Tartarus did to him. Good riddance he was dealt with sooner. Revenge rarely heals scars, however...

A quick scope of the room fed him all the information he really needed: he was patched up, stripped of all manner of weaponry and was laying in a small-scale medical facility... of sorts. And if the gods' funny way of telling him They were _really_ real, then he had a few comments to spare about the afterlife; it wasn't like how he imagined things at all. There was supposed to birds, pristine lakes, a land comparable to paradise and stuff - more attuned with nature. It was so drab and dull and... cold.

But what did he know? The Sangheili was stupid enough to take empty promises at face value, anyway. If not in his military career, then it was his domestic standing. The Vadam name was revered enough to tell him to shove off every so mistake he made - same goes with the rest of his siblings he barely even knew. There was no room for mistake, no compromise. If he was ever instated as the leader of his people, the tradition of family namesake and imperialistic value would be the first to go. Doesn't matter to him whether some would oppose him. They have his blade to answer to on that front.

That, everybody agreed, would be a futile thing to die for. He was not named Arbiter without reason.

Agh. Semantics.

His objective laid unmoved in his eyesight the whole time: a door which streamed blue circuitry from top to bottom, like the ones he sees surrounding Cortana every time she adopts a physical, tangible form. Rest of the place didn't have much in the way of decorative imagination, either. The wall paint seemed copied and pasted upon every tile. This was the only way out.

And on that train of thought, he tore off the tubes from his veins and leapt off. The Sangheili were a very adaptable race; a few openings wouldn't cause his blood pressure any harm. Upon contact, his bare soles found the floor an undertaking in of itself, and sharp stabs of breath seethed out his mandibles. Walking... may be a bit of a problem. But finding just where in the hell he was and who on this plane of existence healed him to health took a certain kind of precedence his honour would be foolish to ignore. After a quick wiggle of the skull, his eyes scan the room once more. Upon the walls lay-by auburn holograms; though he does not know of the origin as he does the technical bits, all the charts and graphs screamed at him a clear purpose: to keep his body in check. And from dying.

It would have been so like Cortana to do this.

He sets off without any further-a-do. The metal door slides open upon ten units of distance in between, and the tell-tale groans which accompanied all ship-doors were surprisingly absent. He knew it, his sub-conscience screamed it. The Arbiter was not aboard any ship that his or the demons' kind concocted.

It opened to a hallway, a cramped one at that. To his left was a dead end, to the right: a way out. He trudges towards the latter, having nowhere else to turn to. It would be wise he kept silent for now. He may have been aided back to help, but being transported to place with no further context as to why you are there other than "you were injured" isn't sufficient enough. For his tastes.

For every 20 units he walked there were rooms with equal size to his. A perfectionist's job; but it was hard to admire architecture when there laid not a single soul to inhabit them. Truthfully, it was a ghost town. He better kept all two of his remaining cards to himself, then.

Before he knew it, Thel reached the end of the hallway - where a door laid shut. Same as before, it opened upon his feet's command.

It... opened to...

...

By the Prophets, this must have been all a cruel joke.

It was too perfect to be mere coincidence. The AI had meant to pull his leg in jest whence the noxious toxins came down his lungs before he fastened himself to the ship; he knew it! 'Laughing gas', his ass - he knew he shouldn't have accepted her help on the _Dawn._

It boasted the same layout as the Council Hall. A dastardly place where Thel'Vadamee had been murdered in cold blood, and in his place, a hollow man too cowardly to face his past in the eye. It was poetic justice the Arbiter lodged his blade through Truth's stomach. But redemption meant little in the way of acceptance.

Much like the room where he was mended of his wounds, it adopted the same colour scheme. A drab, uninterested tinge of blue. Come to think of it, its space was roughly the size of a Covenant Frigate - it was tiny. It didn't help matters that the place was largely hollow; a miniature shipyard. Except, a ship would have a hard time finding its way into this thing; the ceiling was less than desirable.

And where was the ship itself?! Surely, this facility's staff gave thought to the practicality of advocating to a ship the vast majority of people would never think to use!

If only he had with him his sword once he decided to scope this place further. Thel took cautious steps forward... well aware noise could easily mean the diff-

"So our saviour awakens."

His head whirls to the source of that ungodly voice - to his right. It was upon instinct that his hand reaches to the side of his hip, and it was in disappointment he remembered his weapons were confiscated. At least that blue-veined... creature didn't show any nefarious intent.

...yet.

"Where is the demon?" Thel seethes out his maw.

It had the gall to sigh. "And here I was hoping to have started off with _this_ universe's saviour on a high note. Eh, John said as much - but being a doctor _is_, after all, a thankless job. I should have-"

The Sangheili couldn't help himself. "Y-You know him by name?"

It threw off a kind of smirk. "Why, yes - Vadam. Once we got over the fact that something fantastical which would most certainly ruin this mood of this conversation in this entirety had indeed occurred, his AI was more than happy to share his name. That 'demon' even _approved_ it."

And to think he barely got anything out of the Spartan upon their first mission together, gah!

"But, semantics..." the creature voices. "Before I can even begin deconstructing the situation, I am sure you would much rather know where the demon is."

"I would."

"Well, he is outside the ship, I can tell you that much."

"What could he possibly be doing out _there_?"

"Easy." His eyebrows raise. "Diplomacy."

* * *

"I knew it. We are dead. We are so, so very dead. We have our graves dug out for us. Convenient! Should've been more patient. Should've waited for a Quarian vessel and not act on emotions. Should have gone alone, not put someone else's life at-"

"Tali!" Cack, the voice of reason, punched her with reason square in the emergency induction port. "We would have already been dead if that Reaper wanted to kill us. This one may have been robbed of the ship's controls, but it believes they have ulterior motives-"

"Oh, even better! They are going to turn us into husks! But instead of a husk, they will get the physical embodiment of _*wheeze*_ and I would trip on my ass and die of a stroke in the span of ten whopping seconds!

"And get this: my SPECTRE-issued shotgun will be useless! If Shepard was here, great! I'd grab a couple thrall heads, easy! But me alone? Oh boy, I wouldn't be able to shoot the broad side of a bosh'tet's bushy tits! **Stupid** _Fleet and Flotilla _and its unrealistic body proportions!"

"Tali, this one worryingly believes you are getting overly hysterical-"

"Think I don't knnooooOOWWW?!"

So Tali continued to remain like that in such a state, mumbling innate mutterings that, in large part, was rather self-derogatory. What had Shepard done to this child? Wasn't she involved in the final push against Saren?

Yes, she would remain like that for the remainder of the engine stall. Turning its back on her and front facing the ship's controls, it found out that, no, calling upon the almighty power of God to patch up your civilian corvette wouldn't work. It was more in the tech guys' level of expertise.

Two tendrils make their way on the pilot's dashboard, at which point its body sunk into them both. It had made its fair share of risky maneuvres to escape from pirates before. But this was at the point in the black hole he was sure they were beyond saving. Out-manoeuvring a ship basically Sovereign's capacity? You are _dreaming,_ mate.

And then, as if made out of dumb luck, its show of despair was interrupted by the ship's inter-vessel comm. systems flickering to life. The Quarian was broken off her haze of thoughts as well, and both minds were immediately attracted to its lonely orange glow. And soon enough, a voice came through the other end. And it was...

...

Human?!

_"I know this probably isn't the best way to greet others, but we are short out of luck."_

Tali's eyelids tore open. Okay, a Reaper initiating conversation, she had experienced first-hand on Virmire - but them admitting _the Reapers _were at a lost regarding a puny civilian starship like theirs took her back entirely. Shepard couldn't have been wrong about them... could he?

Didn't take long for the (presumably) female to continue.

_"We... miscalculated our trajectories. This route is not frequently in use all too often."_

If a Hanar could smirk, Tali was sure he would be having the widest in the world.

_"And to let you escape via FTL would... blow our covers too quickly, for the lack of a better word. We are not like how you think."_

Tali, also for a lack of a better word, was livid. What kind of excuse was that? She took over the situation rather quickly. "Then explain what in Ancestor's name happened on the Citadel! Explain what the Protheans have left behind bare and naked for all the world to see."

_"Because..._ _because we did commit... genocide. It's... we know better now. Urgh, it would be too difficult a topic to condense."_

The caller seems to be scratching her head - if the subsequent noises gave them any indication. Last Tali recalled, Reapers _didn't_ have hair. And what's this...

_"Look, we can't let you go anyway - so we may as well spend the next hour explaining what's what. And give you concrete context. Contrary to what you may think, we_ do_ have mobile, talking platforms. Take my partner, for example."_

A clearly different respondent took the woman's place - substituting her voice for a more guttural, raw tonality. She could tell it didn't belong to any mere Husk... but who knows anymore.

_"I can second that."_

_"See? Kind of camera-shy, but..."_

The caller sighs.

_"We really do mean it when we say we are not as you think. As I said, some things are better explained seen than told."_

Tali's three fingers trace along her reinforced helmet. "And you expect us to accept and comply with whatever bidding you would have us do?"

_"Absolutely not. That's why we are coming to _you _to prove it."_

"Wait, what do you mean you-"

An audible thud touched base atop the civvie ship's entrance port. But... but that Reaper vessel barely moved an inch, much less _dock _next to the ship so... unpronounced.

The comm. system blares to life once more.

_"I have a feeling open-sesame doesn't apply here."_

* * *

**Hey y'all: suppose this is the review responding part of the chapter. Never done this before, so...**

_**Embershade: Could you tell me in a PM where you found it disjointed? I take any and all criticism, so long as you expand on what went wrong. Thank you so much for taking the time to point it out!**_

_**Chronus: It must be noted I only played snippets of Halo so my knowledge ain't extensive on the technical side of things. This is a character-driven narrative, but I will try incorporating some Halo tech WOW moments.**_

_**brownie: I try my best :3**_

_**DarkChronist: Not quite. Thel is a synthesis of organic and synthetic life - changes were made to his biological imprint down to the molecular level. Don't ask me how or why: I am just taking advantage of the Synthetic ending of ME3. Yeah, I neglected to mention Chief didn't really know of Thel's predicament prior. The latter thought it was too personal. Yeah: Thel's a repentant, insecure, lovable bubbly gum here :D **_

**Again, thanks for the reviews: they really are my lifeblood.**


	10. Vibes

Tali would never have thought she'd be terrified at the prospect of something as simple as an airlock rasping open. Perhaps she was justified in this instance; the Reapers were no joke, after all. But her time with Shepard should have hardened her will in ways she would never have dreamt of before...

Not make her more twitchy and vulnerable than ever.

Yes, she was most certainly a stranger to death; her more naïve self would have labelled grieving friends as irrational back on the Migrant Fleet. On the Flotilla, she had been privy of past instances where a few unlucky souls subject to the uncaring vacuum of space. But they never really bothered her at all - she only ever saw their deaths in statistics. She was sheltered in one of the most well-maintained ships on the Fleet.

Heh, thought she was a bit stoic for her kind because of it. Made her seem like some sort of Quarian badass who would walk into the flaming jaws of death without so much as a flinch.

Now, however...

The loss of life has never cut her so damned deep.

She admired Shepard. Some may even say idolised - and she was more than embarrassed to admit they weren't necessarily wrong.

As the Alliance-endorsed closed-door funeral that was held in his memory drove unto dawn, she externally maintained an air of professionalism among fellow attendees - like she would in any other mission. But by the Ancestor's will, did she hurt on the inside. And it was telling at the time - to almost all of her crewmates - how much the Commander completed a part of her that was simply non-existent on the Fleet. She was moulded by him, his actions, his ideals; made her into the confident girl that every Quarian she walked past looked up to now.

Now she couldn't even own up to what she had promised Shepard in private: that she'd avenge not just him, but all of the souls lost in past Reaper Cycles. Vigil's memoirs were what truly laid the situation so uncaringly upon her shoulders.

And now, she was going to die unceremoniously on a civilian corvette. Anti-climatic, but not terribly inappropriate.

The Quarian glances down to what she wields now - a loose finger hanging stiffly by the trigger of her shotgun, its surface gleaming in the monotony of the ship's interior as it aimed directly at the secondary airlock door. Standing by her right was Cack in a similar pose, two tendrils encasing a Torrent IX's trigger impatiently. The air was stale and the humming and buzzing of the ship drowned the cries of their beating hearts.

Appropriate that they saw this as their last stand. And the door still remained unmoving.

_"Hey!"_

Things were going so well, exactly according to plan, even - when the same woman from earlier thundered her voice about the ship.

_"I'd advise against that if I were you guys."_

She jumps, swinging her head to the ship's comm. system.

_"My friend here is not so liberal when it comes to firearms aiming directly him."_

Cack was taken aback. Its finger-trigger ticked irritably. "How could they have possibly passed the ship's hull-"

_"UNSC-issued radars work wonders when trying to identify what's lurking around the corner."_

Having no choice otherwise, they flippantly holster their weapons. If the Reapers really had the technology that could detect mass-effect energy rifles through hulls, then they were truly done for. No point in fighting back what they couldn't possibly comprehend - at this point, hope for mercy was the only thing they really held out for. They notice the primary, external locks closing now - just a few secs away from meeting their makers.

One of them sighs.

Tali sure hoped Enkindler heaven had a bar. For Cack's sake. Didn't know what it was about his affiliation with liquor, but he certainly can hold it.

...

How do they even excrete the waste?

_SLLLIIIIIINKHH!_

_That _got her attention right quick. She redirects her previously wandering gaze onto the matter at hand. Before her very eyes, the secondary airlock slowly rasps open not long after.

...

She decided that the Reaper liaison not attempting to come in guns blazing immediately after was a good thing.

Its shadow approached the interior doorway - almost surgical in prose. It did not take long for the two inhabitants to take a proper look at what they were dealing with.

Suffice it to say, a humanoid figure encased in thick, green armour which easily stood 5 shoulders taller than her head gave her the heebie-jeebies. It looked... **humanoid**, almost. No digitigrade leg structure, roughly similar body proportions. It was coincidence enough for almost all of the Milky Way's denizens to have roughly the same evolutionary bipedal blueprint - but to have that extend to the Reapers really seemed too good to be true.

Upon visual contact, the figure, much to the subversion of both their expectations, merely remarks their appearance with jealousy's cruellest mistress: indifference.

Surely this wasn't an everyday occurrence for that _thing_, right?

The figure wallows its feet towards them further, before coming to a complete stop in respectable distance between each other. It seemed that it knew a thing or two about maintaining the right air of diplomacy and friendliness. It even knew to put two clasped hands behind its back - almost as if its protocol wherever it trained.

But... where was the other woman...? "I thought you said there were two of you," Tali began.

It was not long before the thing's external speakers said its piece. "I assure you, my partner's here. Patience is a virtue. She's only warming up."

"Fair enough, I guess. But I..." In her panic earlier, it did not occur to her that they spoke in a language not too foreign with her translator. Her translator logs registered the tongue as English: the human's universal language. Sovereign gave no qualms of perfectly translating to Reaper-talk all of the Virmire ground crew. She expected it to extend largely the same way to their intruders. "My omni-tool is picking this up as English. And you lot don't particularly look human to me. Why didn't you employ Reaper magic, like, I don't know... Sovereign?"

The man laid unmoving, still maintaining an air marinised discipline. "All in due time. Be patient."

Tali was about to respond with something snarky, but Cack withheld her on the brink of the cliff's edge. "Tali, be reasonable." The Hanar gave its best impression of a sigh. "We would be deader than a doe with that mouth of yours in any other situation."

At that, the tendrils which pulled her back was efficiently flicked off her shoulder. "Fine. But you better have a good-"

_"What did I miss?"_

The subsequent jump of fright only compounded on Tali's _in_ability to stay sane. "GAH!"

Recovering shortly after, she shakes her helmet about irritably. "Could you TELL her to **stop** doing that?!"

Pity gestures quickly came from the woman's partner - the green-armoured figure in front of the duo. "You heard her, Cortana."

The lady - who seemed to have integrated herself with the ship's systems somehow - groans.

_"Would beat my almost monotonous existence, but hey. An AI's gotta do what she's gotta do."_

Silence ensued after that, and Cack couldn't say it wasn't expecting it. The Reapers had struck a nerve.

Tali was always adamant about synthetics and whatnot. Damn things nearly took everything from her people, as much as the media tried to twist it and turn it into a black and white narrative. Regardless of who's to blame, there's a fine line between crime & punishment and what may as well equate to torture. Why should the young ever have to pay for the sins of the old - people who the only thing they shared was genetic code?

Nobody on this ship had the guts to say anything (_well, except Chief, of course, but Cortana personally told him to shut up and let her think. The former felt rather hurt_). They knew things would all go downhill if someone started throwing accusations.

One eye made sure it kept fixed on Tali if she got out of line.

It was then, after well over 10 seconds, that Tali decided to do what Cack thought was least expected of her: to brush off the touchy 'AI' comment and focus on something else entirely.

"Okay," she finally replies, crossing her arms nimbly. "I can accept that."

Cack didn't have the windpipe to acknowledge its sigh of relief.

But Tali was not done yet.

"But what _I_, and I am sure by extension _Cack is_ confused about is... your partner, er... Cortana. Your purpose. It's not so much about Reapers boarding our ship so much as it is their behaviour. The past months you have tried and almost succeeded in exterminating us all. Now... now _you_ come along. An extraneous variable. And if you are implying that the person in front of me _is _organic, then... there's some part of the narrative I must have lost in the hunt for Saren. Something we have failed to see."

"Saren?" replies Chief, purposefully restraining on his or Cortana's complete lack of knowledge.

"I mean... well, come on. Everybody and their mothers know who he is. Surely there has to be some sort of way to communicate this development between Reaper vessels. If not, then the entirety of the extranet should be evidence enough."

"The news cycle lasted at least a few months," Cack adds. "Nobody could miss it, even if they wanted to."

What both Council-space denizens failed to see was Chief and Cortana discussing the appropriate measure of response to all this. This... extranet. Both UNSC servicemen caught some snippets about it from Loijvas, but they weren't too sure what or where the source is. Perhaps it would have been best to _ask_ Loijvas about the matter before attempting to communicate with races they barely even knew yet.

The way he phrased this 'cycle's' species collective made it seem that their technology was primitive at best. They didn't bother after that.

And alas, it influenced the point that Chief was about to relay to them all.

"I think it would be best if you both boarded our ship."

Cack spared no expense in expressing his concern. "What for?"

"To take you to the heart of the matter. Physically."

* * *

They say that sometimes, opportunity comes to you. Superstitution never really held much weight for the Master Chief, even after Cortana's constant assertions that luck followed him wherever he went - like some sort of pestering anti-pariah.

Even if a little bit, John was starting to believe in luck after all. Their current objective seemed to have poofed into existence before their very eyes.

Before all this other-worldly new species meet-up nonsense, John and Cortana had a heart-to-heart chat with Loi shortly after their agreement to not shoot each other in the face. Since then, the Wisp quickly filled them in on the goings-on of this universe along with the Reapers' future plans - with those that didn't kill themselves, anyway.

Apparently, the plan was to have a contingent of Reaper vessels meet at a designated locale to discuss, with willing organics from _this_ cycle, how best to handle the situation now that the galaxy just got given what may as well be its very own cheat button.

These particular lot decided they weren't simply going to waste themselves away after gaining their conscience back. A way to repent would be more appropriate.

So off the Wisperians, Chief and Cortana went in search of these lucky few - the Wisperians and Loi made sure the rest of the Awakened Reapers knew of their impromptu plan. Of course, those lucky few they were looking for would have to sign a few NDAs here and there... but who would go off and challenge the Reapers, _really_?

That's when opportunity struck half-way through their journey. John, for one, thought their departure from Voi would yield a measure of quietness he would have thought appropriate to retirement. Then this universe's version of a civilian corvette came in and intervened - call it collateral benefit if you want.

It also happened to house some rather upstanding civilians! Of whom Chief and Cortana proceeded to nab through the power of intimidation.

Morals, who needs them?

On the vessel they now resided in, Chief took the liberty of _filling _in what he understood about the situation to the two aliens.

Chief told them what Loi told him about the true origins and nature of the Reapers. That they were harvested from the genetic code of past denizens... of past races. That indoctrination was rendered mute throughout the galaxy... and now every Reaper had a gestalt conscience - a million souls working collectively to guide one vessel - of its own.

Though, it would have been sick to see the Reaper shout "FREEDOM!" at random.

Americans were always depicted in a more favourable light compared to other 21st century nations - though he didn't know why.

Now back to the topic at hand...

Judging from the stiffness of both his guests, the soldier knew he needed to tread warily along this minefield of offensiveness. These two had no real reason to trust him so unconditionally; Cortana trusted them, so _he _trusted them. Plus, he had the added benefit of not yet losing a single friend to Reaper Massacres... less can be said about what his guests would think. Honestly, he had half a mind to bet they probably thought he was full of the world's most pungent shit.

Hopefully, Loi manages to set them straight. And informed.

* * *

The interior of the Reaper vessel did not leave much up for interpretation. Synthetics were cold and calculated by nature, and its design reflected that. The notion of decoration was not in efficiency's ballpark.

Their little excavation ship soon docks within the designated area - a bit too bare and empty for Tali's liking. This is probably where ground Husks would have been deployed on any other normal day.

Deep down, she was more than a little concerned about potential indoctrination. But if a Reaper went out of its way to dig both her and Cack out, surely it wouldn't want her mental health compromised - must have turned off the feature.

Rock, rock, rock went the ship, and until it would come to a complete stop, Tali held staunchly onto the seat latches provided.

The vessel eventually did. "We are here," the green menace announces. "Wouldn't want to keep them waiting. Reapers are an impatient lot."

"You... you are not affiliated with the Reapers?" asks Cack.

It redirects its gaze towards the Hanar. "It wouldn't be in my character to skim over the basics."

Tali blinks as if her eyes were put on shutter-shot. "So... you are human? But you are so... so..."

"Big?" he finishes for the girl. "You could say that. I am the result of a mad scientist's brainchild theorem. But that's a story for another day."

As if on cue, the ship's airlock groggily elevates.

Chief's head motions outwards. "It would be in your best interest if you followed me. It's a labyrinth out there."

* * *

**_WITH LOI AND THEL BY THE SPACEPORT BALCONY_**

The Collector husk lifts his harvested eyelids, calmly noting their newest additions to the vessel. "And it looks like they are back."

"That was... swift," Thel remarks, staring incredulously at the craft. He had barely been out of his coma for half a mega-unit before something significant happening.

Loi shrugs, chuckling. "Well, you'd hope. SPARTANs are the best of the best, supposedly."

The urge to stumble back in shock was surmounting. "He was _that _open about his origins? I could barely scrape up his designation."

But Loi's tired, old eyes did not spare expense in his wisdom. "I mean, you have to understand... barely a day has passed by without your kind killing his in cold blood - and I suspect vice versa. Wouldn't you be uncomfortable with sharing personal details with him out of the blue?"

Thel didn't really have anything else to say about the matter. Inwardly, he suspects these one-on-ones would go on for a good while in the future. "...I suppose."

"Irrespective of your predicament, Thel, John and I agreed to hold a meeting soon after your friends' bout of diplomacy. I swear to you: you will understand _everything _of what I just said and what I am going to say _after_ we are done."

The Sangheili shifts his empty gaze from the docked vessel; had the tenacity to look at Loi square in the eyes for a good moment...

Before heaving a heavy sigh.

"Well, you haven't yet tried to kill me, have you? Let us get this over with."

* * *

"Tali'Zorah nar Rayya. The Reapers have heard quite a lot about you." Loi shifts his posterior a bit from where he sat. "Racked up quite the reputation, serving on the Normandy. Still, that wasn't enough to erase the animosity of the rest of the races' views towards you. But make no mistake... we didn't mean to bump into you."

Her fingers jostle each other with the frantic energy of a boxing match, eyes rolling around like a pinball about what looked to be a corporate meeting room - complete with a long-table and everything. A long, hesitant gulp ran down her throat. Her bottom was straining under the sheer harshness of the Reaper-branded chair.

She still couldn't believe she was talking to a live Reaper. A four-eyed, bug-carcass Reaper! If you had told her a day ago she would be having a meeting with them aboard a Reaper ship in a civil matter, she would have laughed at your face before slapping you as hard as she can. "You k-know me?"

"How couldn't we? Your face - er, helmet - was plastered all over the extranet. You'd have to be catastrophically blind not to see it."

"Then you know I have killed your kind before."

"Yes."

"So..." She shakes her head, gesturing with her one hand to all of Loijvas in an attempt to understand. "Why all of this?"

"Up until a few hours ago, the Reapers would have targeted and blown your ships to pieces. _I_ am here to tell you why this isn't the case now."

Her eyelids pry asunder. "Synthetics and second-_guesses_? If they have a set objective, they will attempt to resolve at all costs. What kind of programming magic...?"

"In due time, Tali'Zorah. In due time. But I believe it's time for me to fill you in..."

* * *

**Please note that after this I may be missing for a fortnight or so. My schedule is getting way too frantic, and I won't have time to casually type up another chapter. But do not worry, I already have a scaffold of the next one, so...**

_**Stay tuned!**_

**SNEAK PEEK**

_"Have you ever tried to open relations after the fact? At all? Humans were content with agreeing to a mutual truce in wars of the past. A month later things usually cool down and everything goes back to the status quo."_

_"You don't know synthetics like I do. They take anything at all costs, even if what that... 'Loi' says is true."_

_"How can you be so sure?"_


	11. Divide

_**IN A DECREPIT MEETING ROOM **_

Frankly, Cackles in the Face of Adversity was feeling just as confused as Tali was. Who in the hell could possibly have possessed the power to provide the Reapers with a front row seat to the roundhouse-slap-back-to-reality show?

'Parently, somebody somewhere _finally_ screamed into their little circuit-boards that there was no need to deal with the synthetic-organic conflict in such absolutes.

The harvesting of all organic life? The Reapers better be careful; they were going to _cut_ themselves with that edge.

Not only did their plans miss the point of their objective entirely, but they seemed so damned god-complexy...

Well, that's only Cack's opinion, of course. You don't fix a problem by poofing it out of existence; you only remove the variable out of the equation... hardly what he would call a definite solution - and it showed.

In the meantime, however, Tali and Cack were about to get the hardest swallowing of their lives.

That the deaths of quintillions of peoples were the by-product of something as pathetic as incompetence. A design flaw. Misguided incompetence, sure; but incompetence it remained.

And the Awakened Reaper had just about done condensed his experiences the past half-day into a 30-minute summary. Knowledge of SPARTAN, Sangheili, Wisperians and other harvested species, notwithstanding.

Billions of peoples were mushed together, facing a maelstrom of misguided-but-good-intentions and were subsequently thrown off a cliff.

This scenario... this conversation. It was one in a trillion. And this cycle was the one to inherit it. Talk about dumb luck.

Tali decided that she'd break the awkward silence first. Her physical habits were all she could hope to contain. "So, that's it, huh? All of this death... it was for nothing."

"I wouldn't... well." A long, hard pause. Loi massages his temples before gushing out his vessel's frills in defeat. "Alright, fine. Their deaths _were _for nothing. But would it be better to lament the past - things you do not have the capacity to change - and not look towards where we are now? We did it. We defeated the Reapers. At the behest of only 0.0000000001% of the population knowing that we did... but it is better than nothing."

"I guess..." Cack replies for its Quarian friend. "But could at least tell us where it all started?"

Loi was all too happy to oblige. His main Reaper body - the ship they were residing in currently - quickly fed his conscience with the necessary information he needed, and it was a matter of simply relaying said information in the most bog-damned incriminating matter possible.

The rest of the Wisperian-consensus approved.

"A race who called themselves the Leviathans." Loi's two guests straighten their backs. "Yeah, it is as every bit a power trip as it sounds. They had the bright idea of cramming about 10 million people, give or take, into a gestalt conscience - a mobile, warship vessel capable of leveling cities from just one shot of the laser cannon. That's us. See how _that_ worked out for them... they forgot to add in some empathy-code as well, make the resulting program understand the incentive behind the Leviathans' goals. They didn't think the Reapers would be little more than machines."

"So it is just a matter of them having their heads too far up their own arses?"

Cack didn't expect the Prothean's vessel to stare at it critically. "Isn't every conflict a variation of that?"

The organics suppose they were. But still, to know that you were placed at the butt-end of some 50-000 year cycle due to misguided intentions of well-meaning individuals were...

Urgh.

"Yeah?" Tali presses after some amount of thinking. "Well, if it is all the same to you, we are still technically being held against our will... minus the hostage part.

"I need to get this Geth tech to the Alerai as soon as I can. Just finding them was a pain in the ass, much less deprogramming them into a dormant state. Shepard wouldn't want me to just... throw them away."

"Well, you never let me finish," responds Loi, resting his elbow on the armrest. "See, the whole purpose of this meeting, other than the exposition bit... was to fill you in with our current goals. And along the way of those goals... perhaps we could make a detour. Keep ourselves hidden in the meantime."

"You'd _do_ that?"

"Well, yes. The greatest threat this cycle would ever face was rendered moot twelve hours ago. I think we can spare some time. Light knows you need it."

"I..."

"Yeah, we still have a long ways to go, of course, but..." The Reaper husk visibly deflates, eyes casting downwards as if he did something to be ashamed of. "All of these millennia, I was nothing but a passer-by to my own actions. Sometimes... when we raze a skyscraper to the ground... and I picture the lives that were about to end... I only felt indifference.

"Do you know what taking someone's life does to a person?

"The first is always your worst, always the one that sticks to you. And then you kill another. Just as harrowing as the last. But then... you take more. And then another... and another... and another... and another. By the time you reach your tenth... you do not feel anything anymore. And that's... that's...

His muscles tense. "F-For luminosity's sake, we have done nothing but raze and kill for the past... _light_ knows how many cycles. So, if we can actually do something _useful _for once... yes, our existence alone is too good an opportunity to pass up.

"Tali, Cack - I swear upon my life that we have changed. The Reapers _want _to repent. We want to _change_. We want to give back what we have taken since the dawn of time. Just... please; we'd be sitting ducks otherwise. Give us a chance."

...

The room was effectively thrown into silence. Cack barely noticed it, but Tali saw the signs the first time she entered the room. She had to be good at reading body expressions to gauge what others were feeling. It was almost a passive social skill every Quarian had to learn in order to socialise. And his apprehensiveness, the way he sat straight as if _he _was the one being interrogated...

This was most likely a make or break meeting for him. And that was all it took for her to accept it.

"I believe you," Tali finally sounds, chucking the atmosphere of the room into a cooler filled with ice.

Loi's eyes widen. "You..."

"Yeah. Quarians know all too well about second chances."

"Tha... thank you." He brings back his signature air of cheeriness once more. "For a second I was beginning to doubt myself. Whether you'd agree to hear out our goals."

In some weird alien form of expression, the Husk coarsely rubs the top of his temple, jittering the sides of his head all the while.

"And now comes the hard part, I suppose." Going by his tone, he seems to have finally readied himself to drop the bombshell of the century. "Upon reflection, I think you may find them a bit... eh... controversial, I think that's the word...?"

Cack slinks backward, his violent-pink body almost squishing against the hard Reaper seat. "Oh! How could I forget? Next thing we know you are gonna overthrow the government and claim your rightful place as our new robot overlords!"

"Well, I assure you: there will be no robot overlords of the sort." Loi's tone lowers down an octave. "At least, I don't _think _it constitutes as such."

"How so?" Tali pipes up.

"It is more akin to pushing others in the right direction."

The Quarian scoffs, throwing at the husk a little trait or two from the galaxy's most crippled Starfleet pilot. "_That _doesn't sound ominous at all..."

"It is not as bad as it sounds, Zorah. First, we are to go to the Citadel to alert other Reaper vessels which do not have strong enough comm. systems... fill them in with what's about to happen. That the Reapers merely want to act as peacekeeping..."

Tali interrupts. "You mean _exterminating_, right?"

"...liaisons between organic-synthetic schisms." Loi pauses, seemingly not registering Tali's complete and utter failure to process what he laid upon her, upon all Quarians. "You really need to allow others their say-"

"You _WHAT_?!"

Loijvas heaves a puff mighty enough to blow a house down. "I don't know what else I expected, really."

Even with Loi's indirect assertions for her to stop overreacting, the Quarian was still dancing in a haze too red for her to see anything otherwise.

"_Peacekeeping_? With _synthetics_? Are you mad?!"

Loi was about to hand her a frank rebuttal, but Tali just about had it with this conversation.

"With you, with you PERHAPS I can make an exception - just the one - but with all the rest... rogue VIs... those ancestors-damned **Geth**. They should be dealt with a punishment no less harsh than being sent to the gallows!

"It would be impossible to alter and tamper their set programming to a more dormant state... much less comprehend organic empathy. I don't know your definition of helping, but aiding those who helped... YOU, take control of the entire Citadel... and now you want to ask something completely different from them. They won't be there to answer your every beck and call. They are their own entities...

"And if that isn't fruitless, I don't know what else is..."

If he had been given his mouth back, Loi's would have been hanging agape. _Oh... this girl was serious. _

Really, really serious. Quick! Deploy echoic defense mechanisms! "Tali, you are thinking ahead of yourself-"

Turns out? Wrong move. He was never really good at tempering anger.

"Damned easy for you to say!"

Cack extends his tendrils in an attempt to calm her down. "Tali, there's no-"

"You REAPERS have never lived a day in the Alerai where you had to fast every other week or so, to the point of _starvation_, just to get by! You have _never _been at the butt end of other race riding on their moral high horse just to piss on people that don't even _affiliate_ with just because they can. You will _never_ know the pain of being denied countless times from inhabiting just _one _planet because of what our _ancestors _did."

The ensuing silence filed in a neat straight line after that.

It only took five seconds for Tali to wish she could have taken back something so... childish. Goddamn. Luckily, there was a helmet in place of her face to hide her fluster.

Loi raises two of his eyebrows on one side. "I trust that you are finished?"

She then decided she needed to shoot herself then and there. "Y-Yeah," Tali works up to mutter. "Vent over. But please... have a think about it. You can't put organics and synthetics in a room for five minutes without something catastrophic happening."

The husk snickers. "Heh. We are well aware." Loi's fingers two sets of fingers then touch tip-to-tip, almost as if mimicking a villain laying his seams from some B-level superhero flick... courtesy of the humans, of course. "It was one of our first topics of consideration, actually. It helps that we are in contact with the Geth, as you are aware."

"Yes. They joined for purposes of fulfilling their own goals."

"Is _that _what they are spreading aboard the Fleet nowadays?"

Tali's tone took on a tell-tale musk of irritation. "Just what are you saying?"

"Well, I am not normally one for finger-pointing, but the Geth started it first."

"...and this is a revelation, how?"

"They... initiated dialogue with us with respect to their desire of attaining a higher place of 'conscience'. All they really wanted was to assimilate with what they thought were their betters. But that isn't the full story, Tali'Zorah. Far from it."

It didn't really need to be said that he more than piqued her interest. "Oh?"

"Nothing's ever clear-cut, or so Shepard would have probably said...

"Upon our first contact with the Geth, they explicitly clarified that they were not up to full strength. Not as strong as they used to be."

The Quarian could only sigh. "Oh, sue me. Now you are about to tell me that some divided sect of Geth approached you, instead - fresh off a civil divide..."

...

Her eyes only widened further when the husk didn't immediately reply to soothe her fears.

"Oh, just shoot me now," she mutters.

"There will be ample time for that later, Tali. But I believe it is in my duty to tell you what the Geth told us."

She blinks hesitantly, her legs shifting about. "And t-that is...?"

"The group that approached us, the ones who called themselves Geth... they were the minority."

Tali draws a hesitant, steeple finger. "You mean...?"

"Yes," Loi confirms. "Most of the Geth actually wanted to _help _you. Your kind simply hasn't sought for it yet."

* * *

**Sorry, had to cut it there - divide it. Otherwise, I couldn't possibly hope to publish any future chapter of the sort. So, yeah. I may be dead for the next week or so. **

**Cheers!**


	12. Jigsaw

**_A WAYS AWAY OUTSIDE THE MEETING ROOM, NEXT TO A CONVENIENTLY-PLACED RAILING OVERLOOKING THE REAPER DOCKING BAY_**

"I was beginning to have second doubts whether you were gonna make it out of that coma at _all_. Guess I underestimated the girth of that stick up your ass..."

Amping his grip upon the railings until his fingers could taste frictional heat, Thel weakly shifts his gaze from the ship which docked not thirty minutes ago, and finally towards John. He gratingly sighs; this AI was utterly** infuriating**. "Demon, surely the construct's jests grate on you every once in a while?"

The AI simply laughs. "Thel, if you think I am not telling him to shut his trap mouth right now, you'd be dead wrong. I have him under lock and key... and you can't do anything about it."

Agitated, Thel growls, dragging the entirety of his hand across the mesh of his face. _"Why_ do you allow Cortana to manipulate you like this?"

As if prompted by a digital mouse, John turns his gaze robotically at the Sangheili overlooking the cargo bay. "I tend to avoid mindless conversational drivel, Thel. Especially when I am in the precarious position of involuntarily producing momentary seconds of awkward silence right after I finish speaking."

...

"Like now."

"So let me slice through the atmosphere with a knife for you so you may look at it no longer," the ex-Shipmaster stiffly replies. "As of now, I am at a lost for words for what has or is unfolding before my very eyes. Before I fell to the... machine, the last rational thought before jittering awake on this ship was a... a strange, humming drone. My apparent surgeon did not help ease matters."

Per usual, Cortana obligatorily contributes to the conversation. "Sometimes I wonder that myself, Thel. I really do."

He tilts his head. "What do you..."

"One of those problems I find myself having trouble accepting is you, Vadam."

Thel snorts. "I knew that the _first_ time John saved you from High Charity."

The AI chuckles. "Not in _that _way, Thel. No, not at all. It is something more deadly serious than you can possibly imagine."

Humanity's AIs usually relied on their tone to get the severity of their points across to starboard marines, as noted from the many days Thel has worked with the humans before Chief and Thel's fateful encounter in the forest. And going by her voice, the Sangheili didn't quite like the sound of things.

It tells him that she was not in the mood for jests. She certainly wasn't in the mood for any bullshit either...

But, he digresses. It would be unwise not to listen to her say.

"You may frankly find it ridiculous, what I am about to show you," she continues. "Hell, I think you would have actually laughed for once had I _told _you verbally. But... I think some things are better left done than said. So..."

His eyebrows contort. "I don't believe I follow-"

It was then, in a bright, blinding flash, that the strangest yet most familiar sensation took hold of his body and sent it astray the only way the most base of his instincts could.

Pain.

Sharp, alien pain at that - seemed to have come from the base of his skull, setting it alight like how a whirring buzzsaw would do with metal.

And it was due time his knees buckle from it. _What was she doing to him?_

He didn't have the chance to scream in pain at all, really; it only lasted a few micro-units.

The replacement sensation after was by far stranger than the last - by orders magnitude.

New information and experiences he would never have thought or conceived before flowed through his mind - not too different from a RAR file filing its contents to File Explorer.

And before he knew it, it was over.

It still felt more the equivalent to some random bloke dropping heaps of cash onto your hands before fucking off-screen without further context as to why you deserved it in the first place, but he hadn't the luxury of screaming in protest. What was he supposed to exactly _do _with all of this?

Panic evolved to clarity. And clarity evolved to confusion.

With the sensation, he saw everything he needed to see without actually seeing it himself.

The feeling was feeding him everything he needed to know, pouring it and embedding within his sub-conscience - the Reapers and their past and future plans/ambitions, somehow ending up in another universe, John and Cortana's predicament, what exactly _happened _to him on the Wisperian planet coincidentally named Voi. And him being apparently being in the centre of it all. The past half-day... all condensed into five measly seconds. Talk about an exposition dump.

...

_Him, an organic and synthetic hybrid?! Who even had the smarts to accomplish such a feat-_

"See?" she interrupts. "Better to experience it first-hand."

Facing upwards, Thel pre-emptively casts a downtrodden eye into John's visors, knowing full well Cortana was in there, watching.

"I d-dont..."

"Understand?" Cortana finishes. "Neither do I... but on the plus side, you are a walking USB port now. Always wanted to be one, and I now seem to be able to implant information in your brain, consensual or not!"

The Sangheili didn't find her jokes very funny. "H-How could I _possibly_ h-have made you into what you are now? _My _genetic make-up mixed in with yours? It does not make any sense."

"And vice versa." Cortana sighs long and hard. "'I barely know the cause myself. May as well have been **magic** for all I know. Seems like it, anyhow. But Thel... don't you understand now? What you have just accomplished. You saved this universe from its very destruction."

Thel only shakes his head in response. He wasn't a big fan of his predicament, she takes it. Then there's his physical situation which allowed Cortana to implement these memories in the first place: the hybrid nature of his body. She only discovered she could do such things to him an hour ago... "No, I was barely a _part_ of it, part of 'saving' it," he says. "Even if what you said was true... whether all of this _is _true and I am truly not in some masochist's twisted... dream experiment. My mind simply obeyed, and my hands were entities of their own - none that I had any control over before grasping those... conduits."

"Well, Thel?" she quips. "Guess we are just going to have to figure this out ourselves.

"And figure out how the hell we are going to get back to _our_ universe..."

"In... indeed..."

_BEEP BEEP BEEP_

_A call from the speakers above..._

"And... that's our cue," Cortana announces. John turns from the balcony, gesturing for Thel to follow him inside the spaceship... straight for the meeting room which held the two alternate-universe denizens. "Come on, wouldn't want to give them, Milky Way figureheads, a bad first impression."

* * *

**_A LITTLE EARLIER IN THE MEETING ROOM..._**

Fucking hell.

Fucking. Hell.

All its life, Cack was frequently told by colleagues and friends that it will land itself in some rather tumultuous waters if it took its galactical shortcuts. Now it was sitting in a room where things that were better left unsaid to civilians were unfolding right before its very visionary sensors. Perhaps the most highly debated topic was being discussed and bargained: the synthetic-organic schism. Right now! In this room! It never wanted or asked for any part of this!

Even a pecking OZ magpie laying out its entrails would be better than...

"If what you say is true, then why didn't the Geth themselves send out units of their own to meet with us?" the Quarian sitting just beside it starts.

"My guess? They were under the assumption that the Alerai would shoot them on sight." Loi shrugs, chucking warily. "Judging by your extreme reaction, and being that you may actually be among the more _progressive_ of your people, I think that's a fair assessment."

She staves off the comment - not much gets to her anymore, especially when such 'offensive' quips were clearly jokes. So Tali runs with it for a while. "And they have managed to elude you of their 'indoctrination', how?"

"Honestly? I don't know. Maybe it was of lower priority for Harbinger to deal with the Geth."

She nods in welcome acceptance. "Alright, perhaps they are 'low priority' to the Reapers. But be that as it may..." Tali again readjusts her seat, much to the passive interest of Cack _(whom so far saw himself having no grounds to participate in the conversation)_. "We still haven't addressed the subtext or the aftermath behind your grand plan."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you said it yourself: the vast majority of us wouldn't take to kindly with allying ourselves with the folk who took our home. I know diplomacy should and always be a mission priority, first and foremost, but how can you expect them to turn a blind eye towards the machines which damned us to eternal migration asylum in the first place?"

Loi's eyebrows - all bloody four of them - wrinkle. "When was the last time you truly made contact with them?"

"Never. Multiple factors involved in that decision, really - our continued existence being one of them."

"Why do you always hold them with the pre-disposition that they will certainly attack-"

"Well, up until now I am the only Quarian open-minded and crazy enough to take the word of a Reaper that the majority of Geth have remained docile for well over a century. So other than that..." She pauses. "We can't risk any quarter of Quarian defence based on the juxtaposition that they **won't** finish the job given the chance. A fickle position."

"Then trust _me_. Trust me when I say you are all better off giving them the benefit of the doubt."

"Look, I don't know about your current headspace, but if you think I am just going to hang the fate of my entire race on the damned Reapers, I..."

"I never said we had to drag the entirety of the Quarian race into this, nor am I intending to. Only when the time comes... after diplomacy... only _then_ will we cross the bridge."

She glares at him with an air of suspicion. "And if they _betray _that armistice as soon as they get a slither of a chance... tell me. Then what? We may as well be done with them now, given the chance."

"It's not in our place to decide who lives and who does not. If they believe it is in their right to continue existing... then they have a consciousness."

"That's _assuming _they have a moral compass. The Early Ancestors designed them to be practical by nature - it was an arms race between different Rannoch software companies to see who can manufacture the 'fastest'. Can't say I didn't expect it coming back to chomp on their tight asses..."

"Tali, you are suggesting _genocide_."

"It can't be genocide when the programs you are wiping out are exactly that: programs. They were designed to stimulate emotion. They were designed to mimic _us_. But they were never designed to ever truly understand it. _That's _why they tried to wipe us out in the first place." Her fist slams on the table. "And snitches... get stitches."

The sheer amount of propaganda Tali had been exposed to must have been astronomical for her, a normally timid individual, to even _consider_ such a thing. "Two... two wrongs _don't_ make a right."

"Oh yeah, that justifies them wiping out billions of our own..."

"They are two sides to every story - you have only been exposed to _one_. You don't know who started..."

"The number of people who died at their hands says _enough_."

Alright, this was the cut-off point where he points out that this is getting out of hand, Cack decided. They were here to discuss and agree on a plan what to do immediately after their involuntary hostage - not the sun dawning on the horizon that they _may _have to address later. It ought to-

_SLLLIIIIICHEEEK!_

A mite startled, Tali and Cack whip their gazes towards the door screeching open just behind where they sat.

In the door's place... slowly slunk two models of the perfect testosterone form, absolute units possessing the ideal male body which sure would fetch millions of women and converted bachelors alike...

At least, _Cack _would have probably thought along those first impressions if not for the rather tense position it was in just prior. For now, it was content with pissing in its pants on the inside. It has experienced enough weirdness to last a lifetime, let alone confront all of them and more in a day.

"How the hell," it raves for but a brief moment, "you barely even moved!"

"Gestalt consciousness, remember. This whole ship is compromised of a million souls... give or take. Some of them have to help at some point. My other Processed contemporaries took care of them for me."

Stood by them now were these two beasts: one of them they were already acquainted with before - the green one - and another, they were completely foreign to. Donned on this figure were silver plates, engraved to a fault for what looks to be marine _combat_ armour. The legs were digitigrade like Tali's, and the parts where the armour didn't cover were laced with scarred, grey skin.

Oh, now it had to deal with new species, too?!

* * *

**_THROUGH THEL'S EYES_**

Now the whole gang's here, it looks like.

Himself, Chief, Cortana and the two denizens who the AI told him to refer to as Cack and Tali'Zorah respectively: one for the tentacle monster, and the other for the bearer of a suspiciously skintight silicone suit.

Still, whatever the heck this meeting entailed, it would probably be nothing short of something completely ridiculous for the Sangheili. It has only been a... a week at most after the Ring's destruction - and with it, hopefully with the Flood - and now they were stuck right in the middle of yet another conflict. He wasn't sure whether he wanted to go through the trouble of finding a way back into his universe, having to potentially deal with these situations every day.

By all means, have at the both of the super-soldiers, but by the Forerunners, he thinks he is overdue for a vacation.

Then again, he took as _many_ vacations from innocent civilians as he _was_ warranted, so he can't particularly whine that much on that front. Gods, he was a pisshead.

In some gesture of mannered confidence, the Sangheili strides past the... creature in pink and onto the seat next to it, as John did next to the one in the suit. Thel still had a sinking feeling his every movement was being scrutinised by Cack's eyes; though, not in mocking sneers as much as it was in genuine intimidation if its many coils curling up was anything to go by.

Would it be morally bankrupt for him to instal this much fear into others and _enjoy_ it?

"Ah, good. You are all here," Loi finally announces, all gazes being redirected to him and him alone. "Tali, Cack: meet the saviours of every individual in this cycle. The one with the split lips is Thel, and I am sure you are both well acquainted with the Chief."

Shaving off the jest, Thel merely looks on as Loi shifts his gaze towards the Spartan, and through some unsaid bout of conversation, they both nodded at each other and agreed to impart... something.

And it better be something reasonable this time. After this little meeting they got here ends, he was going to have a nice, long chat with Loijvas.

And get some answers.

* * *

"The third bombshell I will dropping today, I think, would be the most significant one of them all."

"Surely it can't beat these two apparently saving us all, can it?" asks Cack.

"Oh, I think it will." One of Loi's fingers raises, pointing towards the Sangheili in mock enthusiasm. "See, the one with the eternally hateful glower is the amalgamation of both synthetic and organic genetic make-up. I will get into why this is so impor-"

"I am sorry, but that simply doesn't make sense," Tali presses. "You can't simply combine..."

"Would it help if I showed you our experiment documents and drafts right after this?" suggests Loi. "If not for you to stop interrupting every time I so utter a word."

She promptly shuts up after that, much to the relief of Cack.

"See, with Thel'Vadam's newfound... nature, we can finally tie up some loose ends."

"Reapers having loose ends? _That _doesn't sound good," voices Cack. "I mean, what could possibly manage to elude even you?"

"No kidding." Loi's cranky joints served him no luxury in helping him get up from his seat. As he does, a screen which seemed to have emitted out of nothing flared shakily into existence behind him. He had enraptured the attention of everybody in the room now...

Housed on the interface is the image a structure which looked to be eerily familiar with the Conduit Thel and John stumbled upon. It was part of a space station, that much was obvious if the glaringly neon pink solar emission in its background was anything to go by.

Tali, however, felt the most excruciating pinches of deja-vu as soon as she got a grip on what she was seeing. "Is that...?"

"The one and only." From the bottom of the screen, a new interface notch popped up, and through a swift swipe on Loi's part, he enlarges the image just enough for all the room to see: a logarithmic image of the entire Milky Way galaxy. And it was here in its secluded corner of quadrant 3, emboldened in red, where the station in the image was located.

The Widow system.

The home of the galaxy's 'civilised' affairs and politicking. The Citadel.

"A loose knot... there?" Tali almost gulped. Out of all the places in the galaxy, the Reapers just so happened to have an errand _there_. "Wouldn't a ship your size be, like... not subtle, or something?"

"Ah, you see. That's where the two of you come along." Loi gestures to the two soldiers. "Now, seeing as those two aren't yet familiar with the culture of the Citadel and what attire they wear..."

"Aren't you more concerned about them not being able to find their way around?"

He snickers at her expense. "Not when they have their own AI accompanying them. Pretty sure you are already familiar with her capabilities."

"Are you suggesting that she can total the Citadel's..."

Chief's comm. system inexplicably drummed tell-tall radio crackles to life once more, and in its place came a rather annoyed AI. "Loijvas, I can speak for myself, thanks. Anyhow, Tali; yes. Going by your ship and the codex you carry on that OMNI-tool you are wielding... safe to say, I can blaze through their network defences."

"O... Okay." Tali slumps her back onto the seat in defeat. "But still doesn't address exactly why we are doing this."

"Would it help if I told you that we are going to be going after the source of the Reapers' irrational hate of all galactic life?"

Well, it seemed Tali's morale-meter took a quick turn from E to F.

"You'd let us do that?" asks Tali; just to confirm, anywho. She was going to lodge its head in regardless of whether the Reapers wanted it or not, but it never hurt to ask.

And she had a feeling that Loi was in the mood for head-bashing too.

"Heh. Argh, what the hell. Why not? We are intending on disabling the program anyway. The Starchild's a brat, anyway."

* * *

_To think I still haven't implemented the 'sneak peek' from chapter 10 yet, hah! Anywho..._

**TheDarkChronist: I will try...**

**senselessgrinder: HAH! Yeah, we really _do_ need more Australian OCs. Trust me, I have some plans in store for Shepard's... er... peculiar predicament. Let's just say Cerberus isn't involved...**

**Thanks for the reviews guys!**


	13. Familiar

It was through some manner of controlled resignation that Thel 'Vadam took to digesting the robotic corpse's intentions.

Having a plan to save the universe that revolved entirely around him was not something he was terribly used to. As Shipmaster, sure, he has made a few important calls that changed the tide of war in the Covenant's favour - but that was always under constant scrutiny from the Prophets.

From the manner in which Loijvas had spoken, he wouldn't be too far off in saying all eyes in the room filed him as 'Patient Zero'.

"I-I don't how my involvement with the... Starchild has to do with anything. And I still don-"

"Don't have to worry about a thing," Loi finishes for him. "Even by our lowest standards, your task... I think you will find the plan a tad _simple_."

"Doesn't John-" The SPARTAN snaps his gaze at him, and his vocal cords were caught in a hitch. "T-The demon have any say in this? I know I have a responsibility to fill here now, truly, and I will gladly give my life for it, but... his people will be worried _sick_. His subordinates, each and every one of them - as soon as they catch a glimpse of him... their smiles were so jovial it brightened to a _fault_ if I do say so myself... His very existence sparks joy for the bulk of his people, and it would be wrong for me to keep him... whereas in my case, I..."

For a second there, Thel could have sworn he had heard John _snicker _behind his visors. "I appreciate the gesture, but I really don't mind. It's simply... the, uh, the _likeliness_ of somebody actually inventing something that can replicate the conditions the _Dawn _was placed under is... unrealistic. Heading back to base would be preferable, sure, but building a dimension-warper with enough accuracy to land us back in _our _universe is currently out of the realm of possibility. For now."

"So..."

"I am on board, Arbiter." He nods, curt. "In fact, I think I will write up a field report about it later for good measure."

Wait, aren't SPARTANS...? "What for?"

"ONI," he states matter-of-factly. "Don't you know bookkeeping is their second greatest obsession? They always brought it up in reconnaissance training and drilled it into our heads." To that, the Sangheili shrugs. He was not familiar enough with the organisation to form a just opinion about them. "They will ask me for one as soon as we get back. The least they could ask for is what became of the Dawn. I could certainly _forge _events that didn't happen, but they are not named 'Naval Intelligence' for nothing."

He pauses.

"...First by omitting particular bits and pieces of information, of course. Don't want anyone thinking I have gone crazy. Command would have sent me straight to Dr. Halsey's..."

Nobody thought much of Chief suddenly having the inability to finish that sentence. Save for one keening AI.

Thel was among those many.

"I..." The tips of Thel's claws drum the glossed table. "Th-Thank you, demon."

* * *

Busy doing absolutely nothing of note or worth in the background, Cack and Tali were trying to piece together, slowly and steadily, the very concept of alternative universes. _That_ part certainly wasn't listed in that... 'demon's' brochure from before.

The most exposure either of them was exposed to in dimension-jumping had been in science fiction novels, and even then, it was backed up with schlocky scientific reasoning as to _how _the tech came to be in the first place.

A tendril makes its way up Cack's form, and it did not take long for it to slowly shake in utter disbelief. "Christ, if I hadn't known better I'd say my drinks were spiked..."

Loi 'smirks', cooly crossing his arms. "Better believe it soon, buttercup." He turns, raising his voice an octave. "Eyes up, folks."

Once everyone complied, the Reaper drone wasted no time in pointing toward the screen once more, and a rough draft of the Citadel's blueprint was laid out before them. It was ginormous in detail and would surely take a minute to digest given any other situation, but it did its job relatively well...

Highlighting, in bold red, exactly where shit would hit the fan.

Internally, Cortana speculates Loi's associate 'contemporaries' have taken extra effort in detailing one specific area of the Politika behemoth. This area was Location Zero - marked plainly near the bottom of the station, well below the Presidium and surprisingly the majority of the Citadel's ventilation shafts. The duct rats wouldn't be able to find this part, even if they tried their hardest.

"That's... secure," admits Tali.

Loi chuckles meekly. "Neat, huh? State-of-the-art security system was adapted from a previous cycle - way, way back; they were known for their ability to conceal things using a biotic ability native only to their species. With Sir 'Vadam there, it should merely be a matter of opening sesame. Luckily for us, the entrance is warded off from the public, so getting there should be met with relatively minimal resistance..."

"Minimal? I thought you said it was virtually inaccessible."

"It is." A bothered sigh escapes his vocal box. "It's just that some curious organisations haven't gotten the memo that they are not wanted at the entrance."

What the Reaper indirectly referred to was obvious. The only ones with ambitions as ludicrous as _that_ were... "Cerberus."

He nods. "Spot on."

Another heartfelt pause.

"Only problem with that? We can't engage them. Not yet. Fire at Cerberus and you will earn yourself an express ticket to a C-Sec-sponsored jail cell. To alert security systems _there _would naturally alert the alarms above. You can only guess what happens next. The Original Reapers really made it a point to ensure only a Processed would be given access to the area. As you said: not subtle. Shame... we wanted to get back at ye olde Jack Harper. Controlling _us_? Pah! Whatever he had in store for us would certainly have done nothing good, but that bit would have to wait for another day. For now..."

Loi nonchalantly gestures toward Thel with an open palm, the latter's eyes widening.

"The entrance makes an exception for Reapers, or more specifically, those possessing Reaper code. As you can see, I am not cut out for the job; certainly not the rest of my contemporaries - and the Collectors had already used up the last of the humans in Process, so..."

Bar Chief and Cortana, three in the room inwardly wore slack jaws. After some amount of digestion, Cack, of course, was the first to intervene. "I am sorry?"

"Don't you worry, Cack. You will become familiar with them soon enough." Loi's gaze adjusts itself soon enough, soon landing on the man of the hour. "As for you, if you are _really _serious about helping us in any way you can despite us not even asking for your help yet... you are leading the charge."

The Sangheili curls his lips in understanding. "For the door will finally unlock upon sensing my... digitized presence..."

"Exactly; you may as well be one of us, now. A Reaper. Granted, we have yet to fully grasp your physiology and the exact outcomes of _applying_ your capabilities, but once out on the field, you can determine _that_ for us, yeah?"

"You never once mentioned that I would act as your lab rat, but I suppose that comes with the job." He nods in resigned strokes. "Alright. What next?"

"The plan? For now, it's you, the Chief, Cack and Tali boarding a civvie-classed ship and blending into the crowd somewhat to get there."

"I am sure having in possession of a bloke with four separate mandibles and a human roughly seven feet tall wouldn't give C-Sec cause for concern..." Cack retorts.

Loi focuses his gaze on the Hanar specifically, issuing it a dastardly sneer. "For how fine-tuned you are with humanity, you really don't seem to care much for what they bring to the galactic table."

Cack wards off the temptation to scoff. "What does _that_ have to do anything?"

"It's... it's ComicCon, genius. All week on the Citadel, remember? According to the Extranet, _e__verybody _is looking forward to it."

"Wait, what? It's happening so soon?"

"Uh... lost Quarian here?" Tali pipes up in the background.

Thel crosses his arms, surrendering the aching of his back onto the backrest of his chair. "Make that two."

Loi didn't hesitate this time. "All both of you need to know is that all sense in wardrobe choice is thrown out of the window. For one week. Everybody can be dressed as everything and none will be the wiser. Darkness forsook, _I_ can go in and most folk probably wouldn't mind me. C-Sec probably wouldn't chalk it up to good tailoring skills for me, though. The gist is this: you can slip in, you can slip out. And there won't need to be accountability for stealth. The very _definition_ of simple."

"That's... comforting."

Loi doesn't know how it does it, but Cack makes a convincing shrug. "Welp. Time to play as Blasto for the fifth year in a row."

Well, _that _went off-kilter. Tali perks up, fixing her sights onto the inspired Hanar. "Which franchise are you...?"

"Well, only a heathen would play him using any series other than 'Tentacles Forever', so..."

* * *

After some further clarifying - ironing out specifics of the plan - they file out of the room as fast as they did enter. It just so happened for the Reapers' acquaintances to all be socially-awkward weirdoes that like to keep to themselves.

Even so, Loi stayed in the room, finding himself on his seat busy conversing with the rest of his kind through those damn-fangled synthetic neural processes of his. The Processed were more than concerned with the legitimacy of their plan.

"Do you still have any idea how we are going to root out the Starchild?" his kind collectively said as one. "Rest of the vessels are dealing with the Collectors adjusting and coming to senses with their former selves. And we only have the one shot with Thel 'Vadam.

A frown wrinkles on his face, a hand placed staunchly on his forehead.

"All of your guesses are as good as mine."

"So they are going in there... impromptu? Send them there on our good graces and let them solve our problems for us? That hardly seems fair."

"Well, we are already maintaining constant radio contact to guide them, and they have that AI of theirs if things get hairy." His eyes shut. "Besides, does that Star-brat give us any other choice?"

* * *

_**JUST OUTSIDE THE MEETING ROOM, TALI THE TECHIE CONFRONTS THEL IN A DIM HALLWAY**_

"Different universe, huh?" calls out a voice. "Synthetic-organic 'hybrid', too. One that speaks _English_."

The Sangheili, however reluctant, stops in his tracks. It wasn't out of annoyance like you might think, however. Rather, something so heretical even his people would force him to bear a mark of shame should he even dare to admit out loud...

Thel had been in the middle of following that tentacle creature along with the rest of the group before his ears caught something behind him. Upon turning, indeed, it was the Quarian girl giving him soul-piercing glares the entire time in that little meeting of Loi's. Joy.

Under the scrutiny of his gaze, Tali couldn't help but shrink a little. To be fair, you would too if you had a 7-foot tall hulk of a beast staring back at you and giving their undivided attention.

Still, Tali maintains her signature air of cheeriness - like she always does.

"Can't say I would ever think of finding myself in this situation, and yet, here I am," she concludes.

The staring only marched on in uneven steps.

Her eyes trail to the back of her skull. "Oh, come on," she moans. "Not even a _little_ conversation starter? Surely you have some stories to te-"

"...your suit," Thel stutters.

Eyes widened, she glances downward. "Oh, er, huh. W-What about it?"

"Doesn't this ship ventilate oxygen? Unless you are telling me or your friend we have no need of it..."

"Oh, _that_." Her three fingers reach for the back of her neck. "Well, it's not so much about the lack of air as it is about... microbes. _Terrible _excuse of an immune system, I have. All of us Quarians have them. Have to use our suits; otherwise, our white blood cells would just kick the bucket. I mean, don't you know? Isn't the Extranet embedded within you, or... something?"

He shakes his head. "I only awoke to find myself like this half a mega-unit... 45 minutes ago. You can imagine the shock and confusion..."

"O-Oh! I am so sorry. I just thought..."

"No, it's fine. I am coming to terms with it myself. So... what's this about your immune system acting faulty again?"

"Yeah. Right. So, our bodies don't take kindly to direct exposure to air, so we use these suits."

"How do you get out and use the lavatory, then?"

"Simple. We don't. Fun fact: aim your gun at our suits at just the right spot and angle and you will see a spectacular explosion of..."

"..."

She recoils, fingers held back. "I am creeping you out, aren't I?"

"Well..." Thel chuckles slyly. "There are worse thoughts I could conjure and think of. What I am more curious about... what landed you in such a position in the first place? How long..."

"A triplet of centuries. Three centuries of constant grossly filtered, untouched air. That length and amount of exposure can cripple anyone's immune system."

"Surely, it would be impossible to contain a whole planet for such ambitious purposes, and for such a foolish idea to have been processed and approved before a panel of executives in the first place..."

"Oh! Uh, funny thing, um... Thel, was it?"

"Correct."

"Yeah. We live aboard a fleet of ships, see. Always have, for the longest time."

The Sangheili's eyes widen. "Your planet has suffered the effects of glassings, too?"

She shakes her head. "No, nothing nearly as apocalyptic as that. But... it's something similar. May as well be, anyway."

So drove unto the day did Tali's stories of the Quarian people meet Thel's eager ears. An outcast would be more willing to listen to those from the homeland than the pastures from which he hails from. She drilled the point home: that their ancestors unleashed a synthetic plague upon the galaxy, and those in governance of all galactic-faring species saw fit to damn them to never settle a colony again. Forever left to drift among the stars as deadweight... their culture and spirit eroding as unsubtly as rust coats a metal railing.

And it was through her description of the perpetrators of these synthetic menaces did Thel realise why she was so adamant when they first met.

"And anybody willing to side and cast their lot with the Geth thereby received exile." She shrugs. "And that's about it for my people."

"Interesting."

...

"Say, I believe in a bit of reciprocity, so perhaps..."

The Shipmaster rolls his eyes. "I don't think you would be willing to look upon my face without balling over in disgust should I tell you."

She smirks. "Unless you are implying your race committed genocide in the trillions, it can't be that bad."

Turns out, it was that bad.

Of course, Thel touched on the important bits. Uncensored. The Flood, Prophets, High Charity, the Covenant, the Great War, the Sangheili's ridiculous social structure which _WILL _not be able to sustain itself now that their science division is all but vanished. It was one neat tidy bow of insanity condensed into a quarter of an hour. But Thel did not free himself from the blame. In fact, it seemed that he was solely focusing on himself as the perpetrator. It was as if this was just one long sprawl from a break-down session,

And all the while, Tali could not resist curling and biting her lips in... pity. Soon, he was finished.

"Satisfied, now?" says Thel. "One begs to wonder how the demon tolerates my presence all this time. If you wish to leave, I am more than happy to step-"

What he received in return was something he couldn't imagine _ever _be deserving of; well, since... forever.

The girl ran up and had... honest-to-gods... _hugged_ him. Crushed him into a plushie more like, in earnest sympathy rather than hostility.

He hated himself for registering that it wasn't the most unwelcoming feeling in the world.

"Poor thing..." Tali mutters. "Can't imagine what you went through after being told the truth."

Thel gasps. "Y-You... you can let go, now."

"Oh..." Her hands fell into place as fast as it did escape. "Sorry. Forget sometimes it may not be appropriate for other races. We are a very... physical people."

But Thel's mind was trying to ponder another thing entirely. Normally, when you tell someone the group you belonged with mercilessly slaughtered trillions, you would expect to spit insults in their every direction without hesitation. "You are not... mad?"

"How could I be? It's those Prophets who led your people to do this, yes? You were the weapon, not the wielder. Add to that a millennia of constant cultural indoctrination, and you'd be willing to carry out atrocities. _I _would have, in your position. Don't beat yourself up about it."

"It's hard not to, sometimes."

"Well, the most important thing you can do now is to plan for the future. You can't undo your past, no matter how immoral it may be - no amount of grieving is going to take it back. I think it's... what you do with the added benefit of hindsight is what's most imperative; the right here and now. Auntie 'Raan always told me that it's one's ability to learn and grow from their past that determines their character."

His eyes cast downwards. "It's so easy to say so without having experienced the guilt yourself."

"Very true." She sighs, crossing her arms. "But, I always believed in this: 'hate the idea, not the actor.' Of course, there are some who take it to Hegonomy levels of villainy, but they hardly represent the population. I wouldn't necessarily trust those sort of folk with my life - but - if they really have changed, then I can certainly find some place in my heart to forgive them. So my point still stands."

He gulps. Nobody in his race would bother with forgiveness, so to receive one from someone else, someone you have just met, is a foreign concept. "Yours is a... forgiving people," Thel admits.

She sighs once again. "If only that applied to everyone..."

* * *

**_THERE AND BALC(ONY) AGAIN _**

"How about that, John? You can finally relax and enjoy yourself for once."

Judging from the lack of response, Cortana knew John did not know what to make of this... resting. He has been on active duty since he was born. Weapons rarely receive shore leave, after all.

"Oh, come on. The Citadel is just like you and Blue Team. Except... bigger. And sleazier. Most certainly trashier. Yeah, I think you fit in like a glove."

"Not very encouraging, Cortana."

"I never am."

It was then, while the Chief was approaching the end of the hallway, that his sensors picked up the slightest glow of pink emerging from his six. John turns in response. It was just as he thought - the Hanar was all too curious about Chief and humanity that he couldn't resist striking up a conversation. He was being followed.

Cortana opens up Chief's external microphone. For her own experimentation, she decided to stay out of the one-sided conversation that will most definitely ensue.

Upon receiving an acknowledgement in the form of an unsettling, emotionless glare, Cack decides to hit him with the small things first. "So... pretty tall. You are almost its height. Augmentations, was it? Only the minority can grow this tall without having any genetic defects, and you seem fine and dandy."

"Yes."

"Built for war?"

"Yes."

"..."

"..."

"You are not much of a conversation person, huh?"

The Chief need not respond to that.

"Alright, then. This one guesses it can stick to simpler questions. Do our Earth-centric times align? Between universes, I mean."

"No. Approximately 400 years difference."

"Damn!" The Hanar slouches. "This one guesses your technology trumps ours, right? I mean, it should, right?"

"In most areas, yes. In some areas, not even close. The technicalities are classified."

"As they should be... but, what about you? What _did _you do before this?"

"Classified."

"Really? Not even before the military?"

"Classified."

"Darn. It must be really important business for all of that to be omitted, huh?"

Unsurprisingly, the SPARTAN didn't respond.

Cack's fears going into this conversation were worse than it thought. The bloke was, indeed, stiffer than a VI. And as all good socially-awkward people are, Chief tosses him a question out of nowhere, without further context to the text in the first place.

"Your parents were from Australia... so how did they find you?"

"Oh, _that_. Pff."

Cack straightens its back.

"Well, there's not much to tell. It's rather a cliche, see. They found it, starving on the streets - in Omega. And before you ask, just know it is among the trashiest places you can find in the Milky Way galaxy. They... frankly - they never let this one forget this tid-bit - found this one's appearance rather amusing. It supposes they grew some sort of pity later and started raising this one as a legitimate child. Had the adoption papers and everything."

In the middle of his nostalgia filled haze, the Hanar lands in the real world for but a brief moment, and its motioning sensors met Chief's gaze. Talk about intimidating.

"Do you... wish for this one to continue?"

He nods. "I have time to kill."

Truth be told, it was not a matter of time at all. The Chief was simply curious. About the notion of childhood, I mean. His childhood barely constituted as such, and he always alienated whenever he saw other kids doing things ONI would have surely whipped him good for.

"If you say so. So... this one was raised a normal kid - just as anybody else would have been raised in the backwater colony it lived in. The place is called Whisper. Not going to go too deep into its academic results, but this one will say this. It loves flying. The idea of it. Just soaring in the skies without a care in the world - while _you_ take control of your own fate for once - it's... freeing. So, yes, this one was your typical Aussie kid. Love footie, soccer, all of that nonsense. This one barely even acknowledges where it _truly _came from.

"My parents sure as hell made an effort to expose it to as much Hanarian culture as they could when this one was but a lad; but, for every cultural thing they tried to show it, they immediately counter-acted with quadruple the Australian culture. Needlessly to say, Australia made more than enough impression on this one. And sure enough, it grew to the point where it physically resented their efforts; so they stopped. This one is never changing my name, though, as silly as it is. Don't ever want to be the _odd Hanar _out, now would it? Draws the worst kind of attention."

Chief draws back a bit, however little it may be. "Understandable."

Some uneasy silence and twitching later, Cack decided to say his goodbyes. "Alright. Nice to get to know you more."

Seeing no point as to pursue more meaningful dialogue, the Hanar retires in search of Tali.

"See you."

And he left for good, this time.

And all the while, in the drifting of space, John stared at his hands, opening and clasping them just to make sure whether there was any semblance of humanity left within them.

The moaning and groaning of his MJOLNIR armour told him enough.

* * *

**I am back from the dead. Again. Here's another chapter for all you lovely folks. Now, without further-a-do...**

_**TheDarkChronist: The relationship's certainly taking shape :) Thel needs a bit of reassurance that the Fall of Reach wasn't his fault - he was the weapon, not the wielder, after all...**_

_**seraphimnight: Thank you so much. Warms my heart when someone takes note of the comedy :))**_

**ANYWAY! Super exclusive sneak peek coming at ya:**

_SNEAK PEEK_

_"It's the... what's it called - Spirits, the Expo, was it? A ComicCon? I will never, ever, understand the appeal. You go off, make a fool of yourself and play make-believe for what has to be a week or so, and then what? What could you possibly hope to gain in the end? It's, it's maddening! Well, whatever it is, ever since those humans first introduced it, the trend caught on like wildfire. Now every species wants a piece of that action. Even the Elcor got in; the Spirits-damned Elcor!"_


	14. Interlude 1

_**CERBERUS HQ - THE LION'S DEN**_

"Sir, I insist; Shepard is our best-"

"Project Lazarus can be put on hold for a later date. This recent... development, however, does not afford us such luxuries."

He shutters and detracts his eyes from the blazing star laid before his office window, three twitchy-happy fingers smudged on the skin of his forehead. The cigarette between his fingers caves in, tobacco leaf gasping for air on either side.

If there was one thing apparent, Harper's waning patience had been tested; had it been any other Cerberus agent, they would surely know to fall on their knees with clasped fists - to apologise for every word they uttered to bring him to such a state.

But this wasn't just some ordinary agent.

She was among the best.

And the Illusive Man _knew_ Agent Miranda meant best for Cerberus and humanity as a whole, but her unwavering belief that merely _one_ man was capable of stopping the Reapers is... unrealistic, to put it lightly. The woman standing a few feet beside him had better had her perception of reality checked soon.

"I-"

"_Not _another word, Lawson," he interrupts. Again, Harper didn't _hate_ the girl; but sometimes, her stubbornness on certain missions gets on his nerves - he swears it was going to get her killed someday. Jack lets out a shaky breath. "To be frank, I am afraid Shepard won't be much help for us this time. As you know, the Shadow Broker already cancelled their search and rescue operation as soon as we received the intel - highest bidding or not. I trust that you _understand _the significance of this development?"

Miranda nods in understanding. Nobody of similar rank had been able to take their eyes off the need-to-know bit of intel for a while. "The Reapers are moving en masse, I know."

"Yes," he replies coolly, inhaling and savouring the last bits of tobacco in his mouth. "I am wary that we may have an infiltrator in our midsts, but I believe it was the Shadow Broker's best interest to focus on more pressing things, as it is in ours. So I tell you one final time, Lawson: Project Lazarus is scrapped indefinitely."

Her mouth opens slightly before clambering down to lips stiffer than an iceberg. Turning heel and letting out an abated breath, she makes her way towards the exit - the clanking of her highs quaking forth the crevice air.

"As you wish."

And, like always, she eventually does as she was told.

Harper waited for a few, heartfelt moments following her exit before swiping his hand over the armrest of his seat. An open mic channel appeared before him.

"I want all available divisions and staff directed to garrison duty and military movement. We will not let humanity fall today."

* * *

**_SOMEWHERE, IN A WINDOWLESS SHIP FLOATING THROUGH THE DEAD EMBRACE OF SPACE_**

_PACKAGE PRIORITY ONE OBTAINED_

_DAMAGE EVALUATION: COMPLETE_

_SIGNIFICANT LOSS OF OXYGEN RESULTED IN THE DEPRIVATION OF OXYGEN DISTRIBUTION TO SEVERAL INTERNAL ORGANS_

_MAJORITY OF ORGANS DETERMINED TO BE UNRECOVERABLE_

_PREFRONTAL CORTEX, HIPPOCAMPUS, __AMYGDALA, THALAMUS SALVAGED_

_MEDICAL CONSENSUS: FULL RECOVERY OF LONG-TERM AND SHORT-TERM MEMORY EXPECTED_

**PENDING STATUS OF SHEPARD-COMMANDER [RESTORATION]...**

**CONSENSUS ACHIEVED**

_ORGANIC VESSEL TO BE DISPOSED OF_

_TO BEGIN RECOVERY OF SHEPARD-MEMORY-FILE_

_BEGINNING PRODUCTION OF MODIFIED GETH VESSEL_

_NEXT DESTINATION DETERMINED: RANNOCH_

**NEW SIDE OBJECTIVE OBTAINED:**

**REVIVE SHEPARD-COMMANDER TO A CONSCIOUS STATE**


	15. Amino

_**ABOARD THE WISPERIAN REAPER VESSEL - THREE DAYS INTO ITS SILENT VOYAGE TOWARD THE CITADEL ARMS**_

There had been a bit of activity around the metal halls of the vessel as of late. More... 'bodies' similar to Loi's scattered the breadth of the walkways; the only thing distinguishing them from Husks was the occasional bits of banter hurled at each other every once in a while. While they spoke in another language entirely for the non-Reapers, their tone of voice gave the gang pretty compelling hints as to what they were 'discussing'.

In fact, at no point in time were these people not seen carrying aboard their veined hands a piece of furnishing. It was clear to the Quarian as it was to everyone else that they were hauling these QOL furniture furnishments for them. Their present living conditions were not up to Wisperian standards, it seems.

Tali sighs, staring at the worker ants coming and going through Cack's quarters, of which was conveniently placed right next to hers. His suite was being custom-fitted to best suit a Hanar like him - personal interests included. Well, as was hers, so she supposes it was fair.

Ancestors, she couldn't _wait_ to wake up to the smell of beer from now on.

A spacious hallway was all the Reaper ship could spare in terms of real estate. She shuddered to think what these were used as before, but it would be best to abandon such thoughts when she was going to take up residence for the time being.

Tali never thought she'd be alive to see the Reapers conduct housekeeping around their own ships, but compared to that clusterfuck of a meeting that had been shoved down her throat just earlier, this revelation was, in all seriousness, pretty tame.

Nobody from this version of the Milky Way thought they would ever live to see the day these monstrosities of cybernetics and flesh would be the ones making them feel at home, and yet, here they are.

Back on topic; yes, it was with gracious generosity that Loijvas made the decision to supply temporary dwellings for them to reside in for the time being - being that the transit to the fairly untouched and unexplored outskirts near the Widow system would have to be done as stealthily as possible; and as a result, as slowly as possible.

Nice.

That as may be, all the non-Reapers had verbally expressed prior that they were indeed fine with having only the bare essentials since they were used to spartan layouts. But Loi insisted and pressed that the Reaper-Wisps should be free to do whatever task which made their guests feel comfortable. If not for their guests, then the deed was for themselves; to be able to cling onto their very sanity. It was apparently uncustomary of them to treat guests with graces any less than elegant - and for once - they would like to indulge in old habits from their past lives without the reminder of their current robotic circumstances.

From the sounds and looks of things, Tali and the rest all agreed that the Wisps were pretty cool dudes.

For now, it was time to be a thorn on that 'Sangheili's' backside once again.

She was so determined in fact, she thought it was a good idea to knock upon the door of his assigned living quarters into the wee hours of 'active' duty. Luckily, Thel wasn't in that bad a mood today.

Merely three seconds later, so it seemed that the Sangheili were, indeed, known for their punctuality.

Her calls were answered. "Yes? What is it?"

"It's, uh, Tali. I was wondering if it would be alright with you...?"

"Go ahead. Polishing my armour should give a conversation no grievance."

Apparently, this was the Sangheili code for "yes, you can come in" if his lack of surprise of her promptly entering the room was anything to go by.

Her eyes wander around. First impressions of the refurbishing? Not too bad for a warship. To her immediate left, a galactic-standard washroom, and the rest ahead the living quarters. She would even go so far as to say it was rather 'normal' - comparable to an apartment in the Citadel, of all things. Standard bed, standard entertainment system, standard bookshelf, standard kitchen - standard everything.

The only thing distinguishable in the atmosphere was the spike in humidity increase and the lofty... mechanic's bench built into the sides of the wall. The centrepiece, of course, was none other than Thel 'Vadam, manning the station and tinkering with his armour like he said he was. On his person was some sort of... chainmail - spread throughout and acted as some sort of clothing. The metal bits of the actual armour seemed peculiar as well.

For someone who has emerged from a version of reality where warping in and out of alternate dimensions was possible, the engraved armour he donned seemed rather primitive and... weighing, in her opinion.

Something tells her that this was not mass-produced by any means.

...

Ah, to hell with it. May as well bug him about it while he is here.

"Morning, Arbiter of the Sangheili."

"Tali'Zorah..." There was an audible sigh from the chambers within. "Very soon, I will regret ever revealing that part of me."

"You would have to wipe my memory," she remarks coyly. "Calling me on a first-name basis, too. I'd say that's marvellous progress given that we have only met three days ago."

His groaning sent her on the teetering edges of a giggle fit.

But he eventually got over himself, as always. "Would it be too rude of me to ask why you are here?"

"Well..." The Quarian, doing her best to act like this situation was fine - like everything was fine - leans on the door frame; reckless clause of proper manners for a civilised Quarian, for sure.

But her time on the Normandy had... loosened her screws, so to speak - and has since freed whatever little inhibited sense of excitement left within her. Like that time on Feros, which, in fact, wasn't a good time for Garrus, but yes, a very good time for the Quarian.

"No, not at all," she replies in the heat of the moment, swaying her head left and right. "Just checking up on my neighbours. Apparently, the human wasn't to be disturbed."

"Oh, he always does that; think nothing of it. I'd wager he spends most of his time contemplating this predicament - whether to pledge himself to this reality's humanity if things don't pan out." He takes an inquisitive look over his helmet before finally spotting a crevice he has yet to clean out. "So, things have been slow for you too?"

Tali breathes a sigh, entering the room proper. "Very. Can't even go into my OMNI-tool for one before one of Loi's lackeys comes running up to me and telling me that it's a stupid move. I mean, the likelihood of C-Sec ever detecting its signal has as much chance of winning the _GALACTIX LOTTO_. But no, if there's a chance, you can never risk taking it, they said. And Ancestors forbid any risk involved in this operation." She chuckles meekly. "Shish - like this whole plan _wasn't_ rickety in the first place."

"And by the sounds of things, this may be our only hope of stopping this... 'Starchild.'"

"I know," she says solemnly. "I just wish it wasn't."

The Sangheili then exchanges parts, trading a shined helmet to his left for the shinguard on his right. "Likewise."

If she perhaps attached a speaker into her ears, then perhaps she could detect a slither of emotion coming from his voice. But she supposes his people don't reward showcases of weaknesses all that well.

So, she decided she'd better move onto a different subject instead.

"Hmm," she hums as she walks by the main area, talking cursory glances from top to bottom. "Room looks rather vanilla to me."

The tell-tale squeaks of cloth against metal greeted her back. "I wasn't particularly picky."

She then stops in respectable distance from the Sangheili, focusing her full attention on Thel now. "And the only thing 'special' you needed was a DIY repair station?"

"All things considered, it is... trivial equipment. But beggars can't be choosers. I, for one, am grateful to have the opportunity at all."

"All for that? Your armour?"

"It is my armour which demands it, not me," he presses.

"Then why don't you store it away and use-"

"Yes, and you so happen to have an extra set of Sangheili armour lying around..."

"We can always commission a more protective one from one of those do-hickey armour restoration shops. Heck, even the _Citadel_ has some. I doubt you'd be able to stop mass-effect-powered bullets with, with whatever _that _is. Looks like it's built for a ceremony; never built to see the frontlines."

"That is not far off an assumption," he admits. "But it lasted my kind several thousands of generations. If it has worked for past Arbiters, it shouldn't fail _me_ anytime soon."

She sceptically crosses her arms. "But where do you draw the line between sentiment and functionality?"

"I..." He stops for a moment, turning from his work to face the antsy Quarian. "It withstood the Flood."

"That's your only trump card. One shot between your eyes with _our _bullets? At least you won't live long enough to feel the sting."

Thel huffs. "You can argue all you want. If you wish to know what this can truly handle, talk to Cortana. The construct will set you straight."

His astute hearing meant that the sneer that came from her lips did not go unnoticed. "It's not in my best interest of health to trust it. Think I will pass."

Thel lets out an exaggeratingly entertained scoff. "You seem to harbour deep resentment to an entity which has done everything in its power to make sure you are kept at your best wits for the past week. Even _you_ don't seem to have a problem with me, a part synthetic; so why should _she_ be treated any less fairly?"

"At least you are part flesh - same goes with the rest of the Reapers. _That _thing? It has a lot to live up to if I am to take a _syllable _from it as fact."

"I doubt it would be in her code of ethics to lead her people astray for her own motives. You need only look at her accomplishments in the Covenant-Human War. She's the very avatar of reliability."

"I bet you my life that it will stab us in the back as soon as this is over - just you wait. At the last minute, when all of us least expect it. Then the next thing you know you are at the whims of a funeral company's corpse dresser!"

His mandibles loosen a bit, hanging there like the least inconspicuous red sock. "What is all of this but wild speculation? You haven't held conversation once with her. Psh. Ironic, coming from me..."

"Well, they always have a long term plan - they always will - just... just look at how the Geth handled the Morning War!"

"_History_ is only as reliable as the people who write it. Already there was a source of major emotional bias for your people - if the events of which you described are true. Of course they would antagonise and demonise the Geth. They survived a recent traumatic event detrimental to a people; hard to have sympathy for any enemy in such a situation."

"But we have the statistics to back our side up."

"How can you... If you haven't attempted to open relations with the Geth yet, on what grounds does it give your people the right to assume they will continue annihilation? I am sure had they wished for your total destruction, they would have attacked the Quarian people when they were most vulnerable. There has to be some form of history being twisted here." He cups his chin. "Even so, it doesn't hurt for your people's sake to at least try."

"You don't know synthetics like I do. For crying out loud, I am an _engineer_. I know them inside out. If anything, our former Reaper predicament gives me validity. Synthetics lack the ability to self-reflect, as seen in the Reaper harvests. They lack the ability to comprehend a method alternative to 'save organic life' other than 'saving them from themselves', nor do they ever develop the ability to emotionally understand _why _so many resist death. They do whatever it takes to get the job done at all costs; and even if what Loijvas says is true, they always fill an ulterior motive. I am sure of it."

"But how can you be so sure about another version of AI entirely? You know next to nothing about the Forerunners nor their mastery of technology."

Her breath hitched, back lowering slightly. "S-Same shit, different Tuesday. AI will always travel down the same path..."

"Not if one took the necessary precautions first - rather than simply developing the technology because they could."

The Quarian blows off some air. "Goodness..."

But Thel still pressed on still, even if it's to the point of disregarding Tali's own comfort. "Regardless of your dislike of the construct, if we are to succeed in our endeavours, we need to learn to cast aside our differences entirely. If Loijvas was indeed true, our actions will turn the tide of war on its head..."

"I know, I just-"

As if things played out in a children's book, Tali's stomach managed to accomplish something only the most inexplicable of organs could accomplish at that given time. It growled.

And while the legion of dust of the sky flaked still upon the ash-stained ground, Tali works up the courage to chuckle.

"Well, _that_ was random." A stuttered cough. "Er, yeah. Heh. Sorry. Nasty gas streak. Didn't get much of a chance to eat beforehand. I was so sure I would get to opportunity to eat heartily once I got back home, what with my popularity and all. I have eaten next to nothing but dextro-rations so far into my trip, to tell you the truth. That's on top of you guys coming along..."

After a long moment of debilitating, laying down his tools, Thel promptly stands up. Much to the surprise of the Quarian, he was heading off to the pantry, of all things. "Perhaps I could help with that."

Now he had Tali intrigued. "How so?"

Ah, there it was. The million-dollar question. And it was at this moment where Thel 'Vadam felt his cheeks flare. "When I was young, it was drilled into my head that a man's duty is to serve his people - to partake in combat. Understand that the Covenant-Human was still alive and well, and that many of us wanted to do our part in... quelling the heretics."

Tali nods. "Humans."

"Yes. Naturally, one would think devoting time and passion into anything other than training was a waste. And during that time, my mother and I were close - it was a tight-knit household. So... one thing led to another. I couldn't keep it secret for long that I had taken a liking to woman's work."

As expected, she grinned a smile a jesting pixie would be proud of. "Why did you bring this up in conversation when you know I am gonna bug you for an answer?"

"Yes, yes. I know. My brothers are not here, so perhaps I now have the liberty to tell. I... loved to divulge in cooking. Or the arts. Or literature." Reaching his destination, he leant over the pantry counter. "Gods, I am a woman!"

Tali puts one hand by her hip. "By the Ancestors, the Arbiter of the Sangheili - a sweet tooth!"

"Savoury! It was savoury cooking I took part in. A great shame; I was quite good at it, too."

An eyebrow raised. "Oh, really?" she tempts. "And I am supposed to believe you can cater to a dextro-amino consuming species?"

"Well, yes. Assuming the ingredients are in small, bite-sized chunks, I'd wager I can taste and gauge the needed flavours."

A moment of silence.

Tali's voice drops. "You are serious, aren't you?"

"Yes."

...

"I can't believe I am putting my life in the hands of some split-lipped freak."

* * *

**_SOME ARTFUL BOUTS OF STIRRING AND FRYING LATER_**

The fork digs into more of the emblazoned meat - bubbling, sizzling liquid eclipsing its surface. A knife followed suit not two moments later deeper into the flesh. Now separated, the meat hovers just below Tali's mouth, and with the help of her suit's built-in External Item Consumer - a glorified suit feeding tube, really - it entered into the depths of her jaws once more. She readjusts herself as she sat, the soft light doing a certain somebody no favours where stress is concerned.

And all the while, Thel waits anxiously nearby - the Quarian having been his first customer in what must have been years.

These tiresome seconds couldn't tick by any longer, even if they tried...

_CLINK!_

The Sangheili's eyes fly to Tali's plate. The fork was placed neatly by the half-finished meal.

She's done.

"Mm," she lips to herself, almost whispering. "Needs more salt."

His heart may well have dropped on the ground, splattering and bursting with the blood still circulating in its chambers. He knew he should have put on more to bring out the taste, he just knew it!

But... he could have sworn if he added... "Any more and-"

"Ha ha!" Of course, as with all psychopaths, she decided that she'd laugh at the fact she put the cook that in such emotional dysentery. "That look of utter horror: priceless! Ancestors, that isn't leaving my mind any time soon."

The now-turned scowl on his face deepens into the incline of a gorge.

The girl backs down a little. "But, no, seriously... I... just... thank you for going through the trouble of helping my ungrateful ass. Blowing half of my antibiotics on this was worth it. It's a step up from whatever dextro-trash they serve on the Normandy, anyhow."

And just like that, his burning, seething hate for the girl disappeared, as did his frown. A strange feeling of warmth spread his core, and for the first time in what felt like years, he felt... content with himself.

As if he had finally, _finally_ fulfilled an arbitrary objective he was never aware he wanted, but rather, he needed. And without him noticing it, his esteem swelled for the first time in a long time.

"...My mother would have loved this," he says under his breath.

At the unexpected remark, she looks up to see Thel squirming where he stood. It didn't take much for her to understand what it meant.

"She really meant a lot to you, huh?"

"We... we were closer than you could ever imagine." He shuts his eyes - out of shame or sadness, she couldn't tell. "My father was not around much, having joined the Holy Army. So I had her to keep me company.

"...She taught me the woman trades. What it meant to truly care for others, even if it meant receiving no thanks in return. I was more informed than most in that regard. Empathy. I always kept it secret from others - some stupid stigma about how the work would be unworthy of our 'calibre'. But I don't regret it.

"Those were the finest moments of my entire life.

"...You, you could say she had a hand in making me believe there is still _hope _for me left. _Somewhere_ inside. What would she say now that so many lives had been given the backheel because of my actions? What would she say now that I went against everything she would have wanted?"

Tali shakes her head. "You... you couldn't have known."

"No, I had known it for the longest time, what my actions meant." A shaking hand smothers his eyes from view. "I was simply too prideful and short-sighted to act upon it. _Now_ look what it cost. Reach and all the others... all for the sake of a damned _ring_. The polar opposite of what she would have wanted."

The man looks away from her as though the very gaze would have meant the difference between life and death.

"I failed her. I failed everyone."

Quick to jump on her feet, she wades through the air toward the towering Sangheili in a flash. Though smaller by a significant margin, it was as if Tali stood as tall as a titan, taller than any other mountain, any other obstacle Thel has faced before. And he couldn't help but feel so utterly _little _under her scrutiny. "Look at me."

Though reluctant at first, Thel's eyes eventually wander and settle upon the gloss of her purple visors.

"You may have been that person once. And perhaps, you may have been manipulated and used as someone else's puppet before to do dastardly things. But nobody but _you_ will decide whether or not you will wallow and sulk in your shadow or tell it to dig itself a grave - where it belongs.

"It may take a while for you to heal. Years. Decades. But ask yourself what's better: to die a miserable, self-loathing sack of meat or to live a reformed person knowing that you can do what in the past you could not?"

Her eyes still persisted into Thel's, and under that weight, under all of that expectation... he could only shudder. Only after a few tentative seconds did she retract her hand, backing away from the Sangheili.

"Have a think, Thel" was all she said before she made her way to the entrance.

And just like that, in the span of merely an hour, she shut the suite's door behind him.

"I will" was his breathless answer.

* * *

**_ABOARD THE CHASMS OF CACKLES IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY'S SHIP_**

"Not bad. Not bad at all."

When Cack decided that it was time that it finally checked on his ship for the first time in days, it didn't come back expecting it to be all souped up and renovated - by its very own Reaper hosts no less! It was nothing less of an upgrade. The armour coating outside had been outfitted with the latest ship tech specially engineered by the Reapers themselves.

Inside? Nothing but bliss.

On top of improving the functionality and ability for the ship to be better suited for combat and manoeuvrability, there were loads of QOL instalments technically non-essential to the flight just by the side.

Cafeteria, entertainment lounge, refurbished bathroom - good Lord! The whole lot of what truly differentiated a civvie-classed vessel to a 'professional' one.

Needless to say, it couldn't be more happy with the outcome. 'Course, it had indeed seen droves of Reaper husks rumbling in and out of the dock station over the past days, but it didn't think much of it initially until now.

Though, if it was able to put the cherry on top...

"Oi, Dijagvas!"

The husk's beholden name twists in acknowledgement. "Yes, Cack?"

"Would it be too much of me to ask for a cup holder, just by the pilot seat?"

The husk was taken aback. "What for? You are just asking for an accident to occur..."

"Surely you make an exception for beer? Can-sized, at least?"

In response, she mutters something unintelligible before heading off outside. Not before reluctantly nodding, however.

And it is in this confirmation that the Hanar was able to find peace with himself.

"Fuck yes."

* * *

**_ONE FINAL MEET-UP BEFORE MISSION COMMENCEMENT_**

_"We must tell all of you first that we are in no hurry to get this mission done._

_"If you all walked with a sense of purpose, especially with _those _two on-board__, you will most certainly arouse suspicion. Not the good kind._

_"I advise that you get yourselves familiar with the place first before making any moves. Tali and Cack may definitely be knowledgeable of the place, but they aren't exactly walking compasses. You may also have Cortana along with you, but auditory feedback can only get you so far._

_"So, yes. Mingle around, have fun - all of that RnR jazz. Just don't make it obvious that you may be handling an apocalyptic mission all on your own. Please._

_"The whole galaxy is on your shoulders. Make it count._

_"Good luck."_

* * *

**Aaaand done.**

**Yes, Shepard's a Geth construct now. Woo. Needless to say, they will be travelling to Rannoch to deal with the Geth soon.**

**See you in the next one...**


	16. Parking

**_ON A CERTAIN ALMOST-DESERTED HOMEWORLD-THAT-A-LOT-WOULD-LOVE-TO-SEE-SOMEDAY..._**

Floating aimlessly in the vacuum of space while oxygen seeps out of your space-suit was not what Shepard thought would be on his bucket list. Nor was dying in it.

Yet it happened, anyway. God, Jeff can be a stubborn, friggin' **dolt** sometimes.

In the blank moments before passing in the unknown realm better referred to as the-turbulent-duststorms-of-his-mind, the commander imagined himself in Horus' land, he would stand before the monument of his sins - the people he should have and yet failed to save. Nihlus, Pressley, those STGs on Virmire...

Perhaps this is the universe's special way of telling him to fuck off.

Needless to say, it worked.

What he _didn't _expect to tick off his bucket list was building up a sense of clarity to ponder all of his past regrets _after _death in the first place. Now, that... he would need to follow through.

The worst part?

He felt... detached. Not in the sense he felt alienated by those around him, no. Detached as in... he can't feel his legs. Or hands. Or feet.

Hell, his damned fingers. It wasn't even the same tell-tale 'whisked away' feeling dreams usually gave him. Far from it; he was most definitely switched on. More akin to where only his mind had accompanied him through a smooth voyage toward the isle of nowhere.

All but one of his senses could comprehend the environment which surrounds him, however. Hearing.

It became rather handy once an oddly robotic voice emanated from a soundscape Shepard could only describe as "in him and within him". That is to say... everywhere.

**_GREETINGS SHEPARD-COMMANDER._**

It was not lost on him it sounded suspiciously Geth-like.

His barely restrained voice answered back. "Where am I?"

_**WITHIN THE GETH CONSENSUS.**_

Resisting the urge to ball over in disbelief, Shepard chuffs in the most incriminating way he could. "Yeah. And I am Jesus."

_**HEAVY USE OF SARCASM DETECTED. EXPECTED VARIABLE COMPOUNDED.**_

"Can, can we cut the shit and get this over with?" he says, irritated. "Last time I was conscious, my ship was struck with red hot laser beams that sent it to warship heaven. So, say you were the ones to do this, kill a quarter of my crew. Just know this: whatever you _do _with me, whatever device of torture you manage to pull out of your asses and twist on my own balls, you will not get a single **drop** of information out of my mouth. Not as I am still alive. I've been trained for this shit." He would have pointed a finger at them accusingly if he could feel his hands in the first place. So, he settled for something more simple instead. "The Reapers are still out there and I'd be damned if another person dies from my negligence."

_**ACTIONS PROPOSED WOULD CONTRADICT AND CONFLICT WITH GETH GOALS. YOURS ESPECIALLY.**_

"Uhm... Sorry? Unless I have been hit in the head harder than I thought, I am _pretty_ sure you lot were seen on the Citadel _**helping** _Sovereign send the Reapers an open invitation to purge organic life. I bagged some of your boys too!"

_**GETH DO NOT POSSESS HETERO-**_

"Oh, you get the point."

Like a game of Jenga, he mentally kicks back on a non-existent chair, two legs placed atop each other.

"It's going to take a lot to convince me," he voices, throwing his arms up. "Just putting it out there. Now talk."

_**CONSENSUS ACHIEVED: EVIDENCE WOULD PROVE ADEQUATE.**_

"Confidence. I like that."

Shepard half-expected nothing but drivel about how the Reapers were indeed organic life's last salvation. What he wasn't expecting was the barrage of information accelerating into the very depths of his mind, weaving into his sub-conscience as if _he _was the one to have experienced it all.

And what a revelation it was; he felt it was inappropriate to even question how his very mind was violated for synthetics in the first place.

For it flipped his perspective of the Organic-Synthetic conflict on its head.

"Christ Jesus!" he exclaims, 'jumping' on his feet. Shepard may have been in a daze, but he was at least lucid enough to process the significance of the events that unfolded before his very eyes. "The _Quarians _started the Morning War? The Geth suffered a _SCHISM _after Sovereign made contact with your servers? Why didn't you tell me any of this earlier?"

_**WE FOUND IT INAPPROPRIATE GIVEN YOUR AGITATION UPON RECOGNITION OF OUR PRESENCE.**_

"Yeah? Well, consider my prejudices thrown out the fucking window!" Sub-consciously, Shepard stables himself, feet standing upright - locked and centre. "Tell me the truth. The whole truth. I want to see what happened right after these... 'Collectors' blew my ship to pieces, what happened leading up to our brief flirt with galactic annihilation, and what _is _happening to me, if something hasn't happened already. Is that reasonable enough?"

_**CONSENSUS IN PROGRESS...**_

_**COMPLETE.**_

_**THE GETH FIND THE TERMS AGREEABLE.**_

* * *

_**WIDOW SYSTEM - ENTERING COUNCIL & CITADEL BOARDERS**_

Thel stares scrutinisingly at the violet shimmers emanating and bouncing off the space station, arms crossed with an arrogant pout gracing his mandibles. "Nothing nearly as gallant as High Charity, but given a galactic purge occurs every fifty thousand years, I'd say this is marvellous progress."

"Aw, shucks," replies Tali, a hint of nostalgia gleaming from her expression as she gawked at its brilliance. "It isn't as if we relegated maintenance of the damned thing to a slave race to keep it that way."

A crackle came from Tali's speakers, and a voice filled in a piece of trivia nobody wanted nor cared for. _"Ah_,_ yes. A masterstroke from one of the original Harvested. The Coostan people were well-known for their architecture-"_

"Yeah, and nobody asked for your input, Loi," she transmitted back with a snicker.

_"Gee, furbish someone their very own suite and this is what you get back as thanks..."_

She chuckles. His admonishment was much welcomed. "I love you."

* * *

**_OUTSIDE NEAR REINFORCED RAILINGS AND ENDLESS PITFALLS TO THE STREETS BELOW - C-SEC SHIPYARD DOCKING LOT 39-D, JUST OUTSIDE CACK'S SHIP_**

One of the most absurd things Cack found about Citadel hospitality was _parking_ rates. It would casually range anywhere between five hundred credits to a four-figure if your ship was big enough. Luckily, given the Hanar's ties to the transport industry in general, it had been able to strike a few deals and special discounts with some hosts who strike its fancy. One of them being in Lot 49-d in the lower parts of the Citadel. It also helps that its owner...

"If it isn't the world's most stubborn Hanar!" a voice cries out behind it, leaving its curiosity no choice but to turn around. After finding an eye level of vision to prove inadequate, it casts its form downwards, and lo and behold - the spitting image of a certain man who has seemingly never aged a day since it last saw him.

Yup.

They go way back. Quite the unlikely pair, an introspective Volus and a Hanar. It almost made Whisper a redeemable colony to live in. Luckily for Cack, Thel and John were out of sight, out of mind for the moment - who knows what the ensuing shitstorm of questions would consist of.

"This one sees annoyance hasn't left your company yet. Nor does being too hyper-active for your own good..."

The Volus abruptly steps forward to lightly swing at his tentacles. "Never change, Cack."

There was a nip in the air, a shift in smell, and the Volus were not known for their acute senses of smell for nothing. Leaning slightly to the right, the dockmaster peered through his tendrils to catch a familiar suspect approaching. That purple headscarf of hers was all the information he needed.

"Thought you said you were running a job with precious cargo."

Cack shrugs the best way a Hanar could. "Detour."

At that, his friend leaned forward by his side, almost whispering despite knowing full well the Quarian couldn't hear him from afar. "She's Rael's girl. Sure he won't be pissed?"

"Dude. This one has transported his people - day in, day out - to and from countless solar systems and galaxy quadrants. If anybody would understand, it would be him. Especially considering _she _was the one who asked me for _my_ services in the first place."

Two chubby hands were thrown up in the air. "Hey, it's not my neck on the line; just giving you an outsider's perspective. Whether you delay the delivery further or not, it's your call."

His tentacles draw back a little. "Jeez, have a _little_ faith in me, Vos."

"It's just a precaution. Only reason why I survived so long on Whisper."

"Oh, you _dick_."

Vos' tell-tale chuckle rang about the parking lot, a few slightly concerned passer-by quickly scampering away from the scene. "Love you, man."

The woman of the hour soon catches up to them, huffing and puffing a little from all the unloading cargo from Cack's ship.

"There you are," the Hanar acknowledges. "Did you get much done with the fellas and the... cargo?"

She exclaims. "Are you kidding? _They_ are doing all the legwork, not me. If I barge in I'd be slowing them down."

"I bet." Pointing a tentacle in the Volus' direction, Cack pulls off the most exaggeratingly kiss-ass pose it could think. "Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, meet Vos. Vos - Tali."

Said Volus stepped forward the quickest his legs could move, extending an open hand, his intent clear. "Miss Zorah, pleased to meet your acquaintance."

Tali points at the gesture instead, confused. "Isn't that..."

"Yeah, human expression, I know," he admits. "It's the bad habits that always stick with you, right?"

A slow, very slow nod of bewilderment was all Vos received as a reply. Cack felt he could fall to the ground laughing like an idiot right there and then. "Right."

A bit of flinching and shuffling awkwardly later, Vos decides he would be the one to break the silence.

"...say, I saw you on the 'Net the other day. A few months ago, I think it was. Great thing you did, destroying that tentacle-looking Lovecraft thing. Gave those Geth a good walloping. Miss... Taha?"

"Tali," she corrected with a slight itch in her tone. "It's Tali."

"Agh, sorry." Vos raises a fist to beat his skull in a couple of times to drill the point home. "No good with remembering names. Doesn't help when dealing with so many different species and cultures mingling around."

Being the good friend he was, Vos gestures for both of them walk alongside, using the Citadel skyline as a background composite to set the scene. Soon as he reached the railing ledge, he leans against his sides, loosely crossing his arms.

"...so what's a Quarian like you to do in the Citadel? Cack told me you were being brought back to the Alerai."

Tali brings her hands together. "Oh, just a minor setback, really. Just have to run some... extra errands before making it back. Ordering shipments, arranging transports for Quarians - those sort of things, yeah."

"Ah. Cool." What he was about to say required both her and Cack's attention, so he turns around to compensate. "But that still doesn't explain why you guys went out of your way to look for me. From the way Cack stumbled his way back there, I could tell from a mile away. Can't think of any other reason-"

"Then you know we have a special arrangement it was wondering they could agree to," Cack relinquishes.

Though they couldn't see it, Vos had the world's most shit-eating grin spread across his face. "Ah! Now _this _is up my alley. Anything to break up the monotony of the day is a welcome change. So what will it be?"

"This one was wondering if we could... you know... locate at our ship nearest to the nearest exit."

Vos' eyes widen like saucers. "Cack? Breaking the law? Why, I wouldn't have thought... what's with the change of heart?"

"Let's just say that its appendages are tied and something really, really important is about to happen."

"That's it?"

"Can't go any further than that, sorry."

Vos brings up a hand in reassurance "Well, whatever it is you are doing, I won't pry. Hard enough to keep some semblance of privacy nowadays, anyway. Consider it done. Free of charge. I will contact C-Sec as soon as I can."

Cack lifts a tentacle as a gesture of thanks, of which the Volus happily returned. "You won't regret it, Vos."

His grip loosens a bit. "I won't regret what?"

"You'll see..." Cack almost cryptically murmurs, gesturing to Tali. In some form of unspoken language, Tali and Cack both nod at each other before departing, leaving Vos in the dust.

The Volus could only shake his head in response.

* * *

_**C-SEC ACADEMY - SECURITY CHECKS**_

"It's the... what's it called - Spirits, the Expo, was it? A ComicCon? I will never, ever, understand the appeal. You go off, make a fool of yourself and play make-believe for what has to be a week or so, and then what? What could you possibly hope to gain in the end? A sense of pride and accomplishment in that your very image is in pieces? It's, it's maddening! Well, whatever it is, ever since those humans first introduced it, the trend caught on like wildfire. Now every species wants a piece of that action. Even the Elcor got in; the Spirits-damned Elcor!"

"Geez. Don't even like the Marvel movies?"

"They are for hatchlings, not full-grown adults, Hanar."

"You'd be surprised."

"Yeah? Well, we are Turians! We have standards! You'd do well to remember that the next time you, _ALL _other races, come to your senses."

"Uh huh. So are we clear to go?"

A heavy sigh. "Yes. Everything checks out. Just head to through the gate to your left. Hard to believe any of your costumes are held together as ghastly a material as _plastic_... you all go have fun now at the... the ComicCon. Ugh."

* * *

"How about that, Chief? Cortana slipped past C-Sec security without a hitch!" Cack exclaims excitedly. "God, life would be so much better without AI looking down on us with malicious intent."

"Count your lucky stars that those C-Sec turrets are looking the other way, bud."

It promptly shuts up. Tali could only roll her eyes. She may be warming up to the AI, but she still had her apprehensions all the same. "Yeah. Thanks."

"I shouldn't take all the credit. You all owe that to my makers," she admits in solace. "Any respectable AI could clock that in at ten seconds, anyhow. A proper cyber attack and I'd be hurling this thing into the Widow system's central star."

"I take that back."

* * *

_**Next in their adventures... a meeting with Councilor Anderson! Thanks for putting up with the long delay, guys.**_


	17. Preside

Hard to distinguish the Citadel's interior from a miniature Ring.

That's the impression the two war-hardened veterans got from the place, anyways. Although, they had to admit... the hospice and warmness these cyan walls contained were amongst the most homely they have ever experienced. Needless to say, seeing people of various species mingling and wiggling about the place _peacefully_ was a first for John.

It didn't help that this was the first time since he was six that he saw other people converse and integrate so informally. To add to the uncanniness, the station had the same artificial day-night cycle the Forerunners had on their rings. Darn.

At least now was the evening cycle. ComicCon on the Citadel was always the most eventful at night. People got off work then.

The plan had been for the quartet to stroll through the Presidium in a waltz, with the two Council citizens showing them what was what; be it hidden routes that help them get to Voi's place faster, or points of interest Cack insisted the two soldiers just _had _to see for themselves someday. It was an enlightening experience - but it was one that John and Thel were hesitant to care for.

A life of military combat will do that to people. They wouldn't know two hoots between leisure and the battlefield.

Yet, they pressed onward regardless. Not that much of a _gallant_ effort, but it was a start.

For happiness' sake.

As the cohort walked on (stomped on in John and Thel's case), people glanced at them with varying levels of intrigue... usually ending with the very same people going about their business. As Loi predicted, they weren't all too surprised at their sizes or the heavy equipment they wield.

Citadel denizens were well aware of the hell-spawn tradition the humans called ComicCon bringing about the buzz all throughout the galaxy.

In fact, some passer-by had mistaken their appearances as advertisements for an upcoming video game - though, that was shortly dismissed. More often than not, they had the patience to stop by for pictures; often they were poised to conduct ridiculous poses all for the sake of the camera. Unsurprisingly, the majority of these showstoppers was human.

And for _God's_ sake, no, they did not want to work as costume designers for the upcoming Blasto movie no matter how much they were paying. They already have their own money-making machines. Literally. Luckily, Cack was showing them to their last pit-stop of the day before pursuing their... _other _ventures.

Had Tali's express requests to avoid approaching near the Human Councilor's offices been heard, they wouldn't have come across the awkward conversation that would soon follow.

See, Cack was too busy droning on about how this Krogan statue situated on the lakes commending them for their efforts in the Rachni Wars was among the many reasons the Krogan people were so despised today. Something about its construction being a waste of resources... then followed with Krogan condemning what was a clear "act of hypocrisy". That isn't to say they did not have a point - Krogan-manned ships were often heavily regulated and scrutinised by C-Sec in particular. More than most other races - even the Batarian trade vessels.

All that trivia hardly mattered when a certain ex-commander decided to stop by to say hi. The one person they hoped to skirt by ever since arriving here.

Not that he was an undesirable company; simply the fact that his position could lead to consequences relevant to the Spartan and Arbiter they would much rather not deal with given the _implied_ time limit imposed upon them.

Councilor David Anderson. In the flesh. Holding a tablet on one hand and a smoothie in the other.

Cack had been too busy flexing on the boys with his knowledge of galactic history to notice Tali show herself out. Instead, she had taken to leaning against the railings, staring intently into the shimmering glazes of water below. She was pretty over Cack's antics. Can't say she doesn't like it, now.

Anderson thought it was appropriate to approach her from behind and barge into their business instead of the traditional code of conduct. Being on break meant he could act however way he wanted because he sure as hell wasn't getting any of that in the Council Chambers.

"Back so soon, Tali?" Anderson starts, earning a slight jolt from the Quarian; so much so she cartoonishly spun around. "I was under the assumption that your father was in dire need of that Geth tech to resolve the unrest in... er... Rannoch."

Extending a stiff arm and a slightly crooked scowl, Tali faintly smiles under her mask as they shook hands. "I don't appreciate people who come up on people to startle them for no reason. But it is nice to meet you, too, sir." Her eyes look him over out of instinct. "Though, I thought a Councilor's schedule would appear more... shall we say... occupied."

"That it is, young lady. That it is. In fact, this is the only time this week I get any free time. Most of the time I am either up my contemporaries' asses and calling out their shit or sitting through the thousands of droning requests that could have been approved and disproved by their _own _governments. The galaxy may revolve around the Citadel, but God, they forget their governments make up a big chunk of it, too. Except for those poor Vorcha. Krogan, too. Sparatus is a bit too harsh on them, I think."

"Sounds fun."

"Be grateful you still have a life to live out." He gazes out to the Citadel surroundings, a blank expression forming on his face. "So what's the hold-up? I held you a farewell party and everything."

"Oh, uh, change of plans. I received word from the Fleet some Quarians needed a lift back home. Now I am here. Intently searching. Now, if you don't mind..." The Quarian was just about to head literally anywhere that wasn't in close vicinity to the Councilor before coming face to face with an 8-foot chainmail-wearing monstrosity. Though, slamming her entire body into its chest took things a little too far...

"Ow!" she cries, stumbling backwards.

Anderson, however, merely stood at ease. "These your... transportees?"

"No," she murmurs under an irritated breath, collected. "Not exactly."

"They look... big."

"I appreciate the gesture," Thel responds smugly. Deciding it was appropriate to simply play along as if he was a normal everyday citizen, he extends a hand... a form of gesture not to uncommon for non-humans to take to nowadays. "Honoured to meet you in the flesh... Elde-Councillor."

"Oh, give me a break, will you? I am only half a decade off the Twilight Zone." Taking a step back to fully digest and size up the Sangheili, Anderson shrugs. "You look rather tall for a Turian. In fact, you look way too real for comfort. You even got those split mandibles of yours working! You better win something at ComicCon for that costume of yours, mister..."

"Vadam."

"Huh. Never heard that affix before. Goes to show how much of the galaxy I still don't know."

Seeing Thel slightly recoil back, Cack figured this was the right time to step in. "Fat chance. The panel will end up giving the award to some hot human or Asari chick based on the depth of their cleavages alone."

"You might be surprised; Warhammer 40K has been receiving enormous attention as of late. Who knows? It might go to a Skaven, heh, hell, even Astartes. The green guy to your right looks like he'd be the perfect fit."

All in the group turned to the man whose spotlight has been cast on him dead centre. That human just had to draw attention to the eight-foot marine standing at the back, didn't he? Naturally, Chief only he himself could have responded. He nods. Indifferently. "Eh."

"Well, _he_ clearly isn't enthused." Facing Tali, he wears an expression befitting an arrogant King. "What's the material?"

"Titanium," Tali replies for him. "You never know nowadays, what with Omega-tech. They will be a valuable asset to the Migrant Fleet."

"Never knew the Alerai had taken to looking out for cosplayers..."

"It's a trend climbing up the ranks, sir," quips the girl. "We need their second opinion. What pitfalls we should avoid when making our ceremonial fabrics, so on and so forth. So that, well, you know. We won't die of a cold should our suits leak."

He bears a less than believing frown; having made such a claim, she knew inside that it was plain ridiculous, even to a bloke who's more trusting than most. "Right."

"Yeah, uh..." she looks back at her group nervously. She can't say she's ever come across a situation like this before. It even warranted a silent gulp. "So, it's been good talking with you."

"It has." Anderson was about to reciprocate with a handshake of his own before the unthinkable happened. Just then, the Quarian's stomach belched again. Good Lord, she should eat more _before _crucial missions like this.

"Haven't had much for lunch?" he starts.

Sometimes, all a person could admit is the truth - it was way too obvious at this point. "Yes."

"Yeah? Well, I might know just the place to sate your appetite." Suddenly scoping out the Citadel balconies, there it was: two golden arches standing proud and tall... hovering above the pedestrians walking to and fro. "Follow me. I know someplace where we can get some good grub."

* * *

_**JUST OUTSIDE MCDONALD'S**_

Cack could tell what company the Golden Arches belong to from a mile away. It personally thought they were going to be whisked away something less... trivial. Though, it had no grievances with the Councilor in the slightest. The entire damned food chain was becoming some sort of guilty pleasure for the Hanar.

Can't say the same for the rest of the group. Three of them have yet to have a meal at a fast-food chain, and one of them had never gotten the chance to. Now, they were idling just at its entrance with Anderson gracing from them with the world's most shit-eating grin.

Before he can continue on any of his antics, however, a certain Hanar **really** wanted some answers.

"McDonald's? Really?"

Anderson smirks, turning around to face all four of them. "It's the simple things in life, Cackles. Their beef patties are just calling for me. Plus, they cook quick." He waves a hand at them, motioning his fingers. Sliding through its gates, he steps inside with a determined smile crossing his face, and a keen eye at precisely what the menu hovering above the cashiers entailed. _Texan Onion Rings Special_. Awesome. "Come on in. Holler me once you make up your minds. The Dextro section is just off to the side of the HoverMenu, Tali. I will just wait in line in the meanwhile."

"Thank you, Councillor. Ever since I joined up with Shepard, I have been meaning try out this place," she offers.

"Then you are in for a pleasant surprise, Zorah. And that's David for you." The man spread his arms wide, referring to them all. "Actually, same goes for all of you. Sick and tired of this chain of command business; so damned patronising. Though, you might want to hide the fact those mandibles of yours can actually intake food, Thel."

The Sangheili's eyes widen in apparent acknowledgement. "Duly noted."

"And John; if you don't mind, I'd like to have a one-on-one conversation with you after I bring the goods. Nothing near as crass as recruitment. Just a friendly chat. God knows how much I need them nowadays."

While the marine didn't move in the slightest, he felt the slightest tinges of hesitance welling up deep inside. Frowning, he internally shook off the temptation to head outside, and instead bestowed upon the Councilor what the man wished.

"Sure."

* * *

_**ON THE RESTAURANT BALCONY - OVERLOOKING THE EXPANSE OF THE PRESIDIUM**_

This thing looked way too sinful for John's tastes. Melted cheese trickled down the grazed beef, their 'special' sauce softening the inner lettuce so drastically they almost looked like coleslaw.

_"Bet you haven't seen a burger that looks as good as that."_

_"I don't have much of a sample size to go by here, Cortana."_

_"Again, missed my point entirely. You gotta learn to stop being such a killjoy for once in your life. Just the one. Come on."_

He slowly took to gazing back at his meal. Well, the SPARTAN supposes there was a first for everything. Even if it meant putting on more pounds from this one burger than he would have liked.

Anderson, however, merely stared at him with an incredulous expression from the booth he sat. "You aren't sitting down?"

Unfocused eyes look back at the Councilor. "I am pretty sure that would mean bringing down the whole bench with me, sir."

His mouth hinges open slightly before clamping down in haste. "Oh. I forgot. Pure titanium. Not good. Well, if you ain't comfortable..."

"No; it's fine. Really. I am used to standing up for hours at a time." Chief almost felt tempted to say it wasn't at his own directive, but he suspected that would bring him more trouble than it was worth. Not that it would ruin the mission or anything, it's just...

Ugh.

"If you say so." Anderson had been in the middle of taking his first bite before noticing the armoured giant only hovering a loose finger over the **_[unlatch]_** button.

"Used to it?"

John shuts his eyes. "Yes."

"Well, can't have a burger without a mouth, can you? Unless starving yourself of joy is kinda your thing..."

Anderson needn't say anymore. Off came the helmet, and in its place, a bald, ash-white figure.

John held onto the thing like it was his very soul.

"Woah," gasps Anderson. "You look like a ghost."

A trembling hand brushes up his cheek. "Yeah. I get that a lot."

"I bet."

Now that he said his piece, he promptly grabs his burger as if it would break should he drop it. After a few moments of pondering, down the hatch it went.

His eyes lit up.

"Oh. Wow. This is good."

Anderson chuckles mischievously. "Told your ass."

Of course, John fumbles up the situation once more. What gives for the soldier to immediately revert back to his usual solemn mood? "It is... sad that this is the first time I have ever had a burger. Let alone a... a 'Big Mac'. Sir."

Anderson had been tempted to spit the lettuce onto his tray. In fact, he would have if his mouth had been open a second longer. "Say what? Never seen one in your life?"

"On billboards, maybe. But never in-person." Going by the Councilor's face, John supposes he should give a little more context to his predicament. Without giving too much away, of course. "We weren't given much of a choice, unfortunately."

"Ah. Can't say I have meant somebody who doesn't know their burgers. I know the first time I ever laid my eyes on them. Phew. Takes my taste buds way back. You are in for a treat, soldier." Anderson takes another bite into the burger, careful not to let the crumbs fall onto his tray like he always did. "God. So good. You'd think other races would be scrambling to get their hands on this. Don't mean to pry too much but... you a product of Cerberus?"

At that, John shook his head vigilantly. He'd doubt Cerberus would have the technological capacity to augment super-humans, anyway. Nor the desperation to. "Can't say I am familiar or affiliated with them."

The man nods in approval. "Good. The very basis of their motto screams arrogance, anyway. No two ways about it. Sad to see so many marines slip through the cracks and end up wearing their insignia. Shepard has dealt more blows with them than any other SA marine serving today. And that's no small feat!"

Swallowing, he strikes Anderson with another question of his own. "Mind if I ask who this... 'Shepard' is, sir? Everybody I have met so far seems to hold him to high regard."

"Well, he single-handedly took down that Reaper ship, for one." He smiles, nostalgia running across his mind like streaks of rainbows. "He's also a war hero. No doubt about it. A little informal, sure. But I'd happily trade a hardened by-the-books commander for that cheeky goofball any day. Always saves the lives of the many in his missions if he can help it; same goes for the people he was bloody engaging. More than a few Batarian slavers' lives changed for the better after he spared them from execution. Takes a lot of courage to do what he did. Now they work under SA."

The sudden loss of joy in John's eyes did not go unnoticed by the Councilor. He must have been stuck between a rock and a hard place more than he'd like.

"I take it you have seen a fair amount of combat?"

The soldier stares blankly at him. "Yeah."

Putting down his burger, Anderson lets out a frank yet understanding sigh.

"Look, I have seen my fair share in life. I have lived through the First Contact War, the Shanxi Incident, what have you; seen things you people wouldn't believe. So trust me when I say I have seen it all." Anderson shot him a disparaging grin. "So I know for a fact you are bullshiting me with that armour of yours. We don't have the tech to emulate skin or armour that accurately, let alone that perfectly. Charcoal over there... the way his mandibles make up his jaw integrate way too well for mere cosplay. Too awkward for a Turian. You are hiding something for me."

John knew this exact situation would happen sooner or later. As such, like any good team leader, he prepared to employ one of his many back-up plans. Surprisingly, none of those involved shooting his way out of the Citadel. Heh.

His hand extends and opens, and on the palm of his hand laid a bulb of HoloLight. The Councillor saw this much before the thing exploded in a myriad of colours - so strong was its intensity that Anderson was left with no choice but to recoil and shut his eyelids in fright. Opening his eyes slightly ajar, imagine his surprise when he came to learn that the eight-foot human meant no malicious intent. Instead, a circuited woman hovers above his palm, looking him over with an appreciative smile graces her lips. "You just don't know when to stop prying, do you?"

To Chief's surprise, Anderson roars out a hearty laugh. "I can't help it. It's in my character." Out of instinct, Anderson's eyes trace along the walls of the restaurant, and there they were: CCTV cameras. "You do know this is being taped, right?"

"Accounted and dealt with, David Anderson. Citadel Security won't know any better."

"Hah! So you did." Letting out an abated breath, he looks at the... hologram again. "But in all seriousness, however... what are you?"

"Why, the bane of your existence, of all organic existence. Artificial Intelligence. Oh, the humanity..."

"At least your creators got the humour right. Can't say I won't get sick of it, though."

"Is that a threat?"

He grins. "That's a promise."

Sitting up straight, two elbows make their way onto the restaurant cubby, two fists bundling together.

"So... why reveal yourself? Had I been any other Councillor I would be calling C-Sec and the STG on your ass. Lucky for you, I am not a cooped-up asshat who acts before he thinks."

"Simple. I looked you up in Systems Alliance databanks. You seemed better than the other lot."

"_That's_ not creepy and invasive at all..."

"Trust me, whatever _personal _information you have dies with me. And _if _I lose your information, well... You can kill me yourself. Destroy my data chip. No rhetorics." Now it was Chief's turn to glare at the daring AI. Scepticism still scrubs at Anderson's face awash.

"...right. And what's to stop you from chucking SA servers out of commission now that you are in so damned deep?"

Her two hands stand at ease; neatly tucked away on her back. A smile tucks her lips wide. "Believe it or not, I have a sense of conscience. Crazy, I know. It's just that my creators are not grossly incompetent."

A groan. "Can't believe I am being told off by an AI. God, would I _love_ to know how you are so ahead of the game when all progress into Artificial Intelligence has been stifled by the Council..."

"You want an answer?" she says, confident. "It's long. Very long. And I trust you enough to believe you won't let out secrets."

"I am flattered."

Thus, just as she did with Cack and Tali, she did with Anderson. His face contorting into varying amounts of disbelief and shock throughout her recounting was among the funniest Cortana has ever seen.

* * *

_**FURTHER LEFT OF THE BALCONY, NEAR CHIEF AND ANDERSON - TWO PEOPLE SIT BY THE RAILING, FACING EACH OTHER**_

"Are you sure Cackles is alright on his own?"

The Quarian adjusts her headscarf before setting her two hands on the table, tapping away impatiently. "Yeah. Most resourceful Hanar I know; when it comes to making connections, anyway. He has other errands to take care of. You know, favours for favours. Just in case _this _plan doesn't work out."

"'However low the chance, one must always have a hidden blade stashed near his thigh.'"

"Exactly."

Breaking off eye contact for a moment, he chances a glance at the two humans. His eyes readjust to hers.

"I take it you know him? The dark-skinned one in the uniform?"

"'Know him?'" she repeats mockingly. "More than know him. I served directly under him."

Thel scrutinises his chicken wings for a moment before digging in. All the raving and the craving he overheard over UNSC chatter about how fried chicken is the best made him more than curious to try it out himself. Apparently, this was the _Mamak _variant, deep-friend with spices to emulate Indian fried chicken usually served in bulk at South East Asia. He took a bite with his mandibles before coming to the conclusion that, yes, this is certainly how the humans envisioned it for him. "You certainly have no shortage of friends in high places; where the humans here are concerned, at least."

Meanwhile, Tali was left without a meal to call her own. Her hands play around with her _Suittube _before the Quarian lifts her head to face Thel again. "Well, being friends with the man who saved organic life as we know it usually earns you others' respect." She chuckles nostalgically. "Being featured on Galactic TV certainly helps, too."

"So we have a celebrity in our midsts and nobody recognises you?"

"Oh, come on. No species has the attention span to distinguish one Quarian to another. It is both useful and... maddening, sometimes."

"I can imagine." Thel takes another greedy chomp from the chicken, lavishing in its taste for several seconds on end. "By the gods, what I would give to import the recipe to Sanghelio-your food's here."

Whipping her head to where Thel pointed, a worker bot gingerly hovers toward them, a dextro-amino soda and burger on its tray. Placing them on the table, the screen which makes up its face glows a minimalistic smile before backing away in pursuit of its other customers.

Ah, she couldn't help herself from turning and analysing every shrivel of the burger in front of her, careful to spot out any imperfections.

"Goodness, you are more cautious than my mother _ever_ was!" Thel cries dramatically, earning the ire of a select few.

She shrugs at him indifferently. "I mean, it never hurts to check. What with this possibly being the last meal of our lives..."

"Pessimistic thoughts usually come true."

"And optimistic thoughts usually don't."

He raises an eyebrow, playfully this time. Who would have thought he would be the one to share a little bit of humour? "So let's meet in the middle, shall we?"

Tali couldn't help but reciprocate a smile, raising her burger. "Yeah. Let's."

* * *

**Back from the grave!**

**...**

**And into the grave again. Again, thank you so much for your patience with this story and me as a writer. Especially DARIUSX, who has been sticking around all this time in the Reviews section.**

**Thanks, fellow human!**


	18. Tremble

_**ANDERSON'S**_** _OFFICE_**

It was common sense that Anderson, Tali and Cortana felt the need to discuss their plans in a more disclosed and _private _location. So, after their expedition to McDonald's and their human culinary taste-testing, they settled for discussing matters in the Councilor's office. When they first strode in like they owned the place, Udina didn't know heads or tails whether to salute in respect for the sheer size the two hulks managed to maintain or cower behind his desk in fear.

Now here Loi's merry band of marines were. Awaiting further orders.

John was surprised the Councilor's couch could hold him at all, much less be able to withstand the combined weights of all three of them.

...

Frankly, there was not much to assess beyond that. Yes, he stooped so low so as to conduct a ground analysis of a _Councilors'_ office... combing for any vantage points he could use to his benefit.

Such was life for the Spartan. Combat first... socialising last. Not being exposed to RNR tends to churn out people like him. A Military Man: all motto, no ego.

And if you asked the majority of the populace? May as well be a life not worth living.

As such, the stigma made sure that John didn't dare involve himself with the animated conversation the Hanar and the Sangheili had taken to spark just beside him. Had he done so, well... Chief would come out a stuttering mess.

Here's the score: not two minutes ago, Cack had just got back from its discrete... favours-for-favours errand. Cortana, the resourceful AI she was, relayed the location of their meeting place over to its OMNI-Tool - of which it followed down to the letter.

Naturally, Arby absentmindedly reflecting on his days as a Shipmaster out loud when he overheard Tali's and Anderson's conversation by the time it got there caught the Hanar square in the balls.

Of course, they have been best of buds ever since. A repertoire like no other.

"And you man the ship yourself? Manually? A great responsibility, indeed."

"Well, you may as well with the size you are getting. It's more fun that way."

"I wouldn't entrust myself to the ship controls; not that I _can _control it to save my life... leave it to the ensigns. It gets the job done; in the battlefield, results and your ability to concoct them are all that matters. At least, that is what I _like _telling myself. As Shipmaster, I only directed and led my crew. It is more efficient two have a dozen sets of eyes than one, no?"

The Hanar perks up, to which Thel lightly chuckles at. "That important, huh?"

"I do not exaggerate when I say I have spearheaded many campaigns in the Covenant's quest for genocide. Think I would have been much prouder of my efforts had it been targeted against Parasite forms. Yes, a great many operations under my belt... would you like to hear about it?"

As pilot etiquette decreed, they remained in conversation for the rest of the evening, switching to and fro various topics - childhood, their professional lives and so on...

It came at the expense of leaving Chief out all the while, however; not that they didn't want the Spartan to contribute some war stories.

John simply hadn't taken the initiative to.

Away from their prying eyes, he silently scoots to the edge of the couch, raising his arms for a pair of disbelieving eyes to scrutinise.

Glared at the gits as if they belonged to another man. Opening and closing those damned fingers with the graces of a stillborn earworm.

He brings his neck down. Slowly, his eyelids close.

* * *

**_PRIVATE MEETING_**

"You _do_ know I have the fullest authority to forcefully send you to C-Sec Psychoanalysis Services, right?"

"The possibility never left my mind, sir."

Implanting two shaking fingers into his temple, Anderson falls limp into his leather roll chair. Even if the Quarian was lying about all of this Friendly-Reaper business, she said it with such _conviction _and faith the Commander had a hard time not just wanting to go along with her antics.

So he settled with a rub of his forehead. "Remind me why I ever let you onto the Normandy, again?"

Tali didn't even possess the pride nor ego to flinch; so, she says it as it is. "Because I get the job done."

"And I know you do." He intakes a beleaguered, tired breath. What he would give to serve on the Normandy again... the Alliance in general. Anderson would assuredly find no funny fifty-thousand-year cycle business there, no sir. "I just hope you aren't manipulating that trust."

Her hand reaches her right hip, gripping it assuredly. "Only those without a spine will exploit the trust of a friend."

After a few moments of deliberation and the pouting of the lips, he lets out a small breath of defeat. "Fine. I believe you. C-Sec and the Council will be off your friends' backs for a while. Yours included."

The frown quick metamorphosised into the universe-destroying grin.

Cortana's impromptu plan to save them from disaster worked! Perhaps, this might push her to allow the AI a little leeway in the trust department. Only a little. It certainly was enough to quell a dazed-looking Councilor seeking answers from Tali in a place as decrepit as a fast-food restaurant.

"Oh, Keelah! A thousand, _thousand_ thanks, sir," she reciprocates, extending an open palm and grinning like an idiot all the while - to which he later responds gladly.

Upon noticing the tattoo which trailed down to his wrist when he attempted to return the gesture, however, she took to wearing an irremovable smirk.

"Hey! You still haven't told me about your missus."

"Oh. Yeah, about that..." A hand reaches to the back of his neck, scratching away at a non-existent itch. "I think she's still giving me the cold shoulder. You shalt not leave a woman scorn when you become part of the Council. At least, that's how I _think_ you use it. Think it's best if we drop the subject..."

She sneers. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Well, you should be. For all the sexiness I exude every waking minute, it's a wonder why she could stand being alone for more than five seconds without me."

"Clearly, wrinkly skin is sought after nowadays."

* * *

**Shorter chapter than usual. Have a lot of work piling up, not the least of those being Stage 2 Mathematical Methods. Kill me.**

**November 5th can't come later enough. **


End file.
